Names - yikes

I've come to the conclusion that naming your unborn child is about as big a decision as you can make. It's nearly as big as deciding to have a child to begin with, as both decisions have lifelong, lasting repercussions. How many funny nick names can you think of? What does it rhyme with? Think Seinfeld and body parts ... yeah, it's complicated. Dolores is out, don't worry.

We've had a boy name that we've really liked for about a month - and please don't bother to ask what it is because we're not telling. As part of this tough decision, we quickly learned that everyone has an opinion about just about every name. For that very reason, talking about names with anyone before the baby is born is out. We're going to pick what we like and not hear any stories about how so-and-so knew a so-and-so and that person ended up in jail at the age of 12. No thank you.

So anyway, we've had a boy's first name that we've really liked in our pocket for a while, and then today, we found a girl's first name that we've pretty much fallen in love with. Middle names are TBD still, but at least we're making progress - and who really cares about a middle name anyway? The only purpose that needs to accomplish is that it needs to sound sufficiently important when yelling both first and middle names when the future child is behaving exceptionally badly.

Today was Palm Sunday and my husband and I made the trek to church. Upon walking in, we ran into a friend that I met going through the miscarriage grieving process. At some point following the loss, I realized that I really needed to meet someone else who had been through the same experience and I decided to go to a miscarriage support group at our local hospital. The night I went, there was only one other woman in addition to the nurse. She had just experienced her second miscarriage in four months, and to make life even more complicated, she had a daughter at home whom she couldn't fall apart in front of. We connected at the meeting and have had many coffee dates over the last several months as we've grieved, healed, and grown. She was a lifesaver to me - understanding the dark times and offering just the right words.

I hadn't seen her in a while and it was great to reconnect, if only briefly. The most ironic part was the fact that the priest's sermon today was about suffering, and how when we're going through tough times, we need to surround ourselves with people going through similar experiences to get the support we need. All of this was being said as I sat next to my friend, both of us in much healthier mental states than we were nine months ago when we first met. The other point he made was that without suffering in life, we wouldn't be as compassionate as we are or love as deeply - and we would probably be all too selfish when it came to living life. I agree. I honestly think my husband and I are both better people after last summer, and I'm convinced that last summer's experience will make us better parents this summer. Everything happens for a reason - and speaking of irony, the day I'm due this summer is the same date as the day we found out we miscarried last summer. Hopefully this July 17 ends on a much happier note :-)

Old wives tales about a baby's sex

Since the fact that we're pregnant has been publicly known, I've heard many rumors and speculation about how to tell the sex of an unborn baby. My rational gut reaction to all of these seemingly silly stories is that everyone has a 50/50 chance of guessing what's growing in my stomach right now. As far as probability goes, 50/50 isn't too shabby. Does that make your story true? Unlikely ... but based on the stories that are out there, it appears I'm more likely to be carrying a girl than a boy.

• Fetal heartbeat: Fast heartbeat = girl; slower heartbeat = boy. Now, when I've asked people to define "fast" and "slow", I haven't received concrete numbers, but the fact that our last appointment showed a heartbeat of 155 somehow meant fast and therefore girl. We'll see what Wednesdays numbers end up being.
• Linea negra - theory #1: Line on your belly? High estrogen, which means a girl. No line, better paint the nursery blue. I've got a line - guess I'm having a girl.
• Linea negra - theory #2: If the line only goes from your pubic bone to your belly button, then it's a girl; if it goes up past your belly button up to your sternum, then it's a boy. My line only goes up to my belly button - girl again!
• How you're carrying the baby: This is kind of like the heartbeat and what's denotes "fast", but apparently if you're carrying evenly across your front, onto your sides, it's a girl. Carrying what looks like a basketball on your front, with it ALL out front, it's a boy. The other amazing thing is that experienced mothers are apparently able to tell how you're carrying from a profile pic. Profile = from the side. I personally think I'm carrying all out front (boy), but others have said it's more dispersed than that. Again, according to others, I'm having a girl.
• Baby's level of activity: Got a quiet baby in there? Girl. Growing a kick boxer? Boy. Again, so subjective ... maybe it comes with experience, although I can think of plenty of people from both sexes that I could bet on being either active or quiet babies. Looking at the genetic pool we're dealing with (I'm thinking of you honey), I would be SHOCKED if I didn't have an active person growing in there, boy or girl! So yes, I would say we have an active baby - boy? I'm not convinced ...
• Penny and the wall: There's something about a penny and the wall and whether it sticks. My pregnant brain is not letting me remember the rest, but we haven't tried to put a penny on the wall anyway so jury's still out.
• You just are ...: And then there's my final favorite - "I can just tell." So my mom thinks it's a girl and has since we first said we were pregnant; my mother in law says boy; a friend's mom said girl. And why? Well they can just tell.

I'm sure I'll hear many more theories before July 17 - keep them coming because I find them amusing! If you had asked me several months ago, I would have said definitely a boy (with roots from when we conceived during my cycle), but now I honestly am lacking a gut feeling, probably in part because so many people have told me I'm wrong - you've made me doubt myself! Back to being indecisive.

24 weeks!

Another weekend, another photo shoot. This one with a picture I'm not embarrassed to post. My husband says my belly looks much smaller in the picture than it does in person. If I wasn't pregnant, I may have taken offense to the comment, but since I am thoroughly in love with my belly and what's inside of it (and so is he!), currently wiggling around and kicking as I type, I'll take it :-)

We're many steps closer to taking a baby moon! After several weeks of both of us working like crazy and feeling like we're involved in a rat race to nowhere, we're both looking forward to seven days of nothing and finally booked our flights. Long walks on the beach, fantastic dinners, and sleeping in. Florida here we come! It's not for another 27 days - yes I'm counting - but I'm sure it'll be here soon and I can't wait. Now we just need hotels and to decide whether we're going to spend the whole time in the Palm Beach area (can't wait to see you Char!) or whether we're going to split our vaca between there and somewhere in the Keys. I go back and forth as to which is the better option, with my pregnancy-induced indecisiveness winning out every time. Whence, no hotel reservations yet, but soon enough.

Time for a mug of tea and then early to bed for me. I've been sick with a cold for almost a week and have yet to have a good night's sleep. It's very necessary at this point! Last night I thought I was good to go until I woke up at 5 starving. And I thought I could ignore the hunger and just fall back asleep, that was until the little one started kicking me. I took its activity as a hint to get up and eat some leftover Annie's mac and cheese. The guilt free eating is a plus ... I'd be lying if I said it wasn't.

More to come later this week! We have a doctor's appointment on Wednesday, but I think it should be fairly uneventful. Even though I just said guilt free eating was fun, I do dread the weigh-in. It's always shocking to see a new heaviest-ever weight!

Easing my way back into blogging

So I was planning on attaching a picture of me at 23 weeks (taken last night) to this post, but then I saw how bad the pictures look and quickly changed my mind. My husband and I haven't been great about taking weekly pictures of my growing belly, but we attempted to catch up a bit last night and I should have done a better inspection of the results before saying we could end the photo shoot. The result: three pictures in which i look absolutely exhausted, bordering upon haggard. For some reason, I think being tired while pregnant goes straight to my eyes.

Enough complaining though - I said I wouldn't complain this time around about being pregnant, and truth be told, there really hasn't been much to complain about. But if I'm going to be honest with myself, I'm just a bit too vain to post or send out pictures that don't look at least decent!

In the past week, the little one has really started to kick with a vengeance ... it feels amazing. And after many attempts of me calling my husband over to feel a kick - the first 10 or so resulting in an absolutely silent baby as soon as he put his hand on my stomach - he was finally able to feel a solid attack to my mid-section last Friday afternoon. It was such a cool moment to share with him and I would like to think I'll remember his reaction forever. He basically jumped away from me as if he'd experienced an electric shock - but a shock that clearly sent shivers of happiness and awe down his spine. His smile was ear to ear and he bounced around a bit on his feet. It was super cute to say the least.

We're really starting to get excited, and part of me wishes it was July now. On the other hand, like when I realize that we are completely unprepared and don't have a single item in our house that relates to a baby, I'm thankful to have nearly four more months. Now if I can just get over the fact that registering for baby gear sends shivers of fear and angst down my spine, we'll be in a lot better shape. I thought I would love registering, but I have found the process to be completely overwhelming. Since becoming pregnant, my indecisive nature has reached a peak, and with at least 30 options for every single piece of equipment, my poor pregnant brain pretty much shuts down. I also think that having to do so much research to register makes me realize how little I actually know about babies, which is also an overwhelming feeling. Luckily, I have a very rational husband who doesn't seem to be phased in the least and is convinced we'll have no trouble figuring things out as we go. I guess people have been having babies for, well, ever. How hard can it be?

I think I'm going to succumb to tonight's exhaustion. Work is still a frenzied craze of stress and ridiculousness and I'm pooped. Time to catch up on DVR'd television and finish knitting a baby hat for a friend that had an absolutely adorable little girl a couple of weeks ago. Little Stella needs a watermelon hat!

A lot to catch up on ...

So that, ladies and gentlemen, is an ultrasound image of a little baby at 20 weeks - and she/he is ours! Clearly, we have a lot to catch up on.

After I posted my last post, I decided that I couldn't blog anymore for a while. I needed to let trying take its course, and try not to obsess. This second part was a near impossibility, and blogging about trying certainly wasn't the distraction I was looking for. So I decided to lay low and use a written journal while I continued to grieve for the little one we lost.

Fast forward several weeks later to a Sunday morning in November when we found out we were pregnant again. While we were excited, we knew our attitude about this pregnancy was going to be different than the last time. Gone were the insanely happy moments - I was filled with trepidation and fear. I wanted more than anything to wish away the first trimester and move on to greener (safer) astures. And the blog was no longer anonymous, while anonymous was what we wanted to be ...

Fast forward to the end of the first trimester - YAY - work took a turn toward craziness. So while I was ready to make the news public and blog again, I found myself at a loss for time, and on manydays, energy. And then where to begin again? How retrospective do I want to be?

Well with this post I begin blogging again. As for the second question - I haven't decided, but we'll figure it out together as I go.

The spine was one of my favorite shots from last week's ultrasound. All lit up and looking great!

I'm now 21 weeks - more than halfway done. More to come. I'm back, baby.

Control freak

While I've known this for a while, probably years, my current situation is highlighting just how much I enjoy trying to control my life. I'm well aware that there is so much in life you can't control, and while I can accept that, it doesn't mean I enjoy it. Having a baby is certainly one of those things you can't control (to a great extent), but I've come to the realization that I compensate for that by trying to control other things in life. 

When you're trying to get pregnant, there's a lot of mandatory patience and waiting. There are only two or three days when your body will get pregnant, so in a 28 day cycle, that means there are 25-26 days of waiting. It's during these waiting periods that I try to control everything else. Over the past 24 hours, I have become reobsessed with finishing our house and getting it just right. There's a room on the first floor that needs to be painted, our bedroom needs to be painted, man-land (the basement) needs to be worked on ... and I enjoy diving into all of these projects because I feel happy when I get to control the progress that is involved with completing them. Plus they serve as a much welcome distraction, and I get to feel productive, which I love. 

I have wished on numerous occasions that I could feel as happy and content when I'm relaxing as when I'm productive, but honestly that is just not the case. Well that's not exactly true. When we're on vacation, I let myself completely relax and unwind. I LOVE doing nothing on vacation. But typically we're not on vacation so I knit during football games and putter around the house all weekend if we don't have plans. I love the satisfaction of completing a project - and that's why I'm going to take a long lunch break today, head to ACE and get paint chips. 

Healing takes time

I've learned a lot of lessons over the past (almost) two months, one of which is the title of this post. Healing takes time, and for me, it's taken almost a full two months to feel mentally healthy and happy again. It feels so good to wake up in the morning feeling like "me" again, I can't even put that into words! I'm sure there will be times when the sadness creeps up again, and I'll never forget, but I do finally feel at peace. I'm still amazed and astonished how attached you can be to something that you only knew for 12 weeks ... but to say that I wasn't attached, would be a blatant lie.

Another lesson I've learned, or was reminded of I probably should say, is how lucky I am to have amazing family and friends in my life. There were plenty of times when they didn't know what to say, and if I'm honest, there were also times when my loved ones said the wrong things, but they were instrumental in getting me back to my healthy self. My husband is amazing ... in so many ways. He is my best friend and my rock. I love that he can make me laugh, even when all I want to do is cry.

Other lessons I've learned:

• I will never ask anyone about their plans for children, not even a best friend. It's all so personal and they will offer the information they feel comfortable offering.
• I will be more sensitive when it comes to all things pregnant, for everybody.
• I will never again wait 12 weeks to have a first ultrasound.
• No matter how wonderful family and friends are, you have to talk to someone who has been through the same experience as you because only they can truly understand what you're going through.
• The next time I get pregnant, I have a 1/5 chance of miscarrying, which I like to think of as an 80 percent chance of everything being just fine.
• I'm a terrible griever! I love to repress, repress, and then repress some more. BUT, that's pretty much the most unhelpful thing you can do to yourself.

So what's next? Hopefully some good luck and a lot of fun :-) I'm looking forward to not being able to have a glass of wine with dinner, to feeling tired all day long, to having to pee often, and to having a super human sense of smell. I may complain about future pregnancy symptoms every once in a while, but I will feel like the luckiest woman in the world every moment of every day starting the moment I pee on another stick and see two pink lines.