The Power of Prayer

My mother started praying for our baby as soon as she found out we were pregnant. She has been lighting a candel every week at church and praying for the her health.

Once we found out about the heart problems, I was really wishing my Grandma was still around. For some reason, I've always thought she had an "in" with God or something, because it always seemed her prayers were answered. I really wanted her here praying for our baby, but I suppose now she really has an "in" with God, being up there with him and all.

After we found out, mom brought over a bottle of holy water that used to be Grandma's. She told me to annoint my tummy everyday and pray for our baby. At first Adam was heistant to do this with him, but after a couple days it became part of our nightly routine.

At the first ultrasound the two chambers of her heart were very clearly seen, and that was all. But at the second one, we could clearly see three chambers. Granted, the doctor said that this three-chamber syndrome has higher risks for loosing the baby, but I can't help but wonder, if by the next ultrasound the power of our prayer will help our baby girl's fourth chamber grow and develope. If not, then we're still praying for her health and survival.

The "Other Part" of the Second Ultrasound

At the first ultrasound, the tech (Patty) and the doctor could only see two chambers on baby's heart. But this time there were clearly three! I'm not sure if the first time they just couldn't get a good enough angle to see the other chamber, or if all our prayers are being answered. I can't help but think that at the next ultrasound with the cardiologist that maybe the fourth chamber will have developed also!

On the not quite as good side though, the cardiologist (Dr. Gremmels) said that this 3-chamber condition, which we believe he called heterotaxy, doesn't have set surgeries like HLHS. They use many of the same procedures as with HLHS, but there might be a fourth surgery, and the survival risk goes down a little. He said that there is no way that the underdeveloped lower chamber will develop (even with the surgeries). So eventually (like when she's 30-40ish), our baby girl will need a heart transplant when that one lower chamber poops out from doing the work of two lower chambers. The risks of transplants are fewer in an adult than an infant, which is why they would wait until she's older. But, I would also think that it would be easier to find an adult-sized heart that would match our daughter, than it would be to find a newborn-sized heart to match her blood type.

I guess, though, that the word heterotaxy means that when the baby's cells were dividing and figuring out who's doing what, that something went wrong and the cells got their lefts and rights mixed up. Which in some organs is okay. For example, our baby's lungs are probably backwards, but both lungs function the same, so it doesn't matter. The same works for the kidneys. But with the heart, the two sides do different things, and our baby's heart is a little shift to the right out of place. Since some organs are only on one side of the body, often with heterotaxy some organs don't develop. In the case of our baby, she doesn't have a spleen, and I'm wondering if she has two gall bladders then (which the doctor said is sometimes the case). She can live without a spleen (people have the removed everyday), but she will have a weakened immune system. The ultrasound tech said that her stomach is also on the wrong side, which we're not sure if it will be a big deal or not.

All of the people that we saw this time were extremely warm and welcoming. They took time to explain things in plain English, and were not at all scary. Granted, I hate driving to downtown St. Paul and parking in United's own parking ramp and having to pay; but it might be worth it to see these people again instead of scary doctor (who apparently my friend, Natalie's, mom knows) again.

It's a Girl!

At our second ultrasound, as we were talking with the ultrasound technician (Patty), she mentioned how before she would know the gender of the baby, she would refer to the baby as a he (which is proper English). But then couples would think that they were having a boy. So she had to stop, and start calling it baby instead. I chuckled and said, "Docherty would be proud." Then the ultrasound tech said, "I had him!" Wait, what? Turns out she went to high school at Saint Bernard's and her daughter went to Holy Childhood and was in Adam's 3rd & 4th grade classes. Small world...

Then, since Adam was at this ultrasound, we asked if we could find out the gender. As you can see from the ultrasound picture, we're having a baby girl!

She was a wiggle worm while they were trying to get a good look at her, we even saw her trying to suck her thumb... though it was hard to tell if she actually got it in there or not.

Someone mentioned to me that it's really easy for them to do 3D ultrasounds, so I asked our new Saint Bernard's friend if she really could easily do a 3D picture of our baby. She said if we had time she would, and at the very end, she did! Adam said it looked like a melted wax image of her, but I think she's adorable!

I'm absolutely in love with our daughter and I can't wait to meet her in May or June (they want to change our due date... again... this time they tell me I'm not as far as the last time, but closer to when I figured we're due).

Bad Morning

Everyone's first thought it probably morning sickness, but I think I would have rather had that (hmm... well, maybe).

I got up in the morning and went through my normal morning routine... sometimes in the shower, I don't feel well (I think it's a combination of the heat & needing something to eat), and this morning was one of them. But it was worse. I decided not to squeege the shower (shhhh... don't tell Adam, I always yell at him for not doing it!), but to go lay down on the bed. So I grabbed my towel, and started heading for the door. Once I got to the doorway, my vision was going, I was grabbing the wall, looking for the light switch (which I realized was on the other side of the doorway), and my knees were starting to give-way. I knew I was going down, and I remembered in our first class, Carrie told us that if we were going to faint, to lower ourselves to the ground so that we didn't take a hard fall. So, with the help of the wall (and gravity), my arms braced my ways down to the floor.

I never "passed out" where I wasn't aware, but I laid on that floor with my eyes closed for quite some time. I eventually felt I was well enough to crawl into the bathroom, to try to get ready for work. Realizing that it's really hard to get at a lot of what I need to get ready in the morning from a baby's view (good to know what our baby could and couldn't potentially get into!), I crawled back into our room and laid on our bed.

Eventually I felt well enough to finish getting ready for the day, and got up and did just that. I sent Adam a text, telling him that I wished he would take his phone to work, so I could get a hold of him in cases like this. I was hoping he would see it when he got home from work, and realize that he really did need to start bringing it (as I've been telling him for a while).

To my suprise, he took my advice a while ago, and had been bringing it to work. He called to see if everything was alright. He wanted to make sure that I hadn't fallen hard, and I was well enough to drive to school and teach without passing out, especially while driving!

The rest of the day I took it as easy as I could, with the help of my Airliner, I taught from my desk chair, and avoided going down and back up to my 3rd floor classroom as much as possible. And, I have felt fine since.

Trying to Figure it All Out

Tuesday morning, I woke up and got ready for work with everything weighting on my mind. I had told Adam that we could read that little brown booklet together later. But he was at work, and I was hungry for information that would let me have the same hope my mom had. So I opened the little brown book and started to read. I paged through to try to find the heart defect that mom told me about. It was the last one described. The last line said, "Unfortunately, even with surgery, the long-term outlook is usually poor for babies with this condition, unless a heart transplant can be performed." At which, I broke out into tears that I couldn't control. What I just read had told me that my baby was going to die, unless someone else's baby did so that mine could have a heart transplant.

I paced, I cried, I waited at the window to see Adam's car pulling up, but it never did. 6:45am passed, and I didn't leave for work, 7am passed and I didn't leave. Finally at 7:15am, I gathered up enough will power to get myself into my car and leave for work, without seeing Adam. I somehow managed to make my way through 1st hour, and mass. During 2nd hour, I told Heidi and started to cry, but pulled myself together again and made it through the rest of the day.

During 7th hour, my prep, I got a phone call from my midwife, Carrie. She told me that we were in her thoughts & prayers, but that she was transferring my care to MN Perinatal. She said that her last two pregnancies were high-risk, and that's where her care was transferred. She recommended Dr. Burris, after I told her about scary doctor. I would now be delivering at United, so that baby could be brought right over to Children's to be taken care of.

On Wednesday, during our 1:00 dismissal at school, I sat in my classroom and researched HLHS. I think the best site I came across was from a hospital in Philadelphia called Chop. It had a few videos that explained really well what HSHS was, how the surgery works, and, my favorite, life with HLHS. The last video showed several kids who are living with HLHS, and are doing quite well. I started to tear up a little when one of the doctors said that he had even gotten an invite from one of his patients to his wedding! This gave me the hope I was looking for!

I also found information about this 3-stage surgery. I found survival rates, depending on the hospital and the doctor were anywhere from 75% to 90%. I started to cling to those numbers, as they look much better than what scary doctor and the stupid little brown booklet told me.

On Friday, I got a call back from the genetic counselor, Joan, letting me know that the quad screen results came back and that everything looked good. The risk of the baby having Downs Syndrome was 1 in 3700, Trisomy 18 was 1 in 5000, and spinabifida was 1 in 4400.

Now we are just waiting to meet with the cardiologist at the ultrasound on December 22nd!

The "Other Part" of the First Ultrasound

The other part of the first ultrasound that I wasn't ready to blog about right away was when "scary doctor" (as mom and I refer to her as) came in...

Once the ultrasound tech (Krista) took a bunch of pictures of baby, she said she just needs to get a picture of the four chambers of baby's heart for the doctor. So I watched the monitor with different blobs moving across it (sometimes being able to recognize parts of the heart). But the u/s tech didn't really say much other than trying to get "peanut," as she called baby, to turn.

Once she was done, and gave us a bunch of pictures of baby, she said, "The doctor will be in, in a minute to talk to you." Not having ever been pregnant before, I didn't really think anything of it, and just figured that's how these appointments go.

I got my jacket on, and sat back down to wait. We didn't wait very long for the doctor to come in.

Once she (Dr. Danilenko) was there, I really don't remember a whole lot of what she said. But what I do remember is that she said she was very concerned about our baby's heart. It only had two chambers and she wanted to rescan to make sure they were reading it correctly. Then she went on to tell us about all these other tests I would have to have (most of which I really didn't hear). I remember she said I needed to have a Level II Ultrasound with a cardiologist there to look at the heart, and that they wanted to echo my heart, because they are concerned about my heart murmur (which I've had since birth). She also wanted to do an amniocentesis right then & there, along with a quad screen. She never actually told us any name for this two-chamber syndrome, but she did tell us in such a matter-of-fact tone, that it has a high mortality rate. Which of course, is when my heart just about stopped beating itself.

I laid back down on the bed, and she did the ultrasound again. She still could only find two chambers on baby's heart. I agreed to do the quad screen (blood draw), but I didn't want to do the amnio at that point (and I'm not sure if I'll want to do one later either).

Before we left, the genetic counselor came back in and gave me a little brown booklet with the title "Your Baby Has a Congenital Heart Defect" and gave us a little console.

After the appointment, I called Adam from the parking lot and briefly explained what scary doctor had told us. Then, mom took me out to eat at Panera, so I could re-collect myself as best I could, and then I went back to school (though my day was already over). Adam told me he would meet me at school (he had to be there for set-building & he really wanted to see the pictures).

When I got back to school, Diane asked me if I was okay (apparently I hadn't hidden my tears from the car well enough). I told her yes, and showed her and Barb the ultrasound pictures. I found Jennifer, our principal, and told her what happened, so that they would be aware that I may be needing time off for more appointments. Then I went up to my room and did what I could to try to keep my mind off it.

Adam showed up, and we held each other for a few moments. I showed him the pictures of our baby and pointed out the 5 little fingers and the little foot we saw. He didn't want to worry about the rest until we had then next ultrasound. We talked a little about it, but I don't think he wanted to think or talk about it at that point.

He had to stick around for the set build, but I left, and stopped by mom's on the way home, as she told me she had something for me. I stopped by and after the appointment she had gone shopping and Vickie's was giving away little dogs with each purchase. The dog they had given her said "HOPE" in big white letters. She gave it to me and said she wasn't worried anymore.

She also showed me some research she had done on the internet, but I didn't really hear a lot of it. I remember she said that she found that it was called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (or HLHS). She told me there were surgery options or a transplant was an option.

This is all I really remember about that day... other than Adam holding me all night long as I tried not to cry myself to sleep.

A Sneak-Peak at Our Baby!

I had our first ultrasound today! Adam wasn't able to come, because they only schedule them before 12:30pm, and he has school. However, my mother was thrilled to come along.

We were at the appointment 5 minutes early, just as they asked, but they were a half hour late calling us in to be seen. We first met with a genetic counselor, who went through any and all health-related problems in our families. Our main concern was club feet, as my grandpa has one, and my cousin has two. But she went through everything, including (let's see if I can get this right, because mom was actually the one who explained it) two of my mom's cousins who each had a child with a heart defect. She wasn't too worried about it though, because it seemed to be pretty far removed from me (and baby).

They sent us back out to the waiting room to wait for the ultrasound tech to be ready for us. Then Krista (I found out her name later) brought us back into the ultrasound room and put warm jelly on my tummy (my mom was surprised it was warm... I guess back in the day they didn't have the technology to warm it up or something!) Then she moved her little device around and found baby right away, but wanted to check around to make sure he didn't have any siblings in there. Then we could see baby! She measured him (and I'll call baby him, because I think it's a boy, but we don't know for sure yet) from crown to rump and told us that I was actually 15 weeks 2 days pregnant, not 13 weeks 6 days, moving my due date up to May 22 (the day of Katie & Derek's wedding!). She wasn't able to do the first trimester screening (that I was actually there for), since I was past 13 weeks 6 days. Then she moved around to find 5 little fingers and two little legs with little feet and took lots of pictures.

Baby's head & spine (on the screen you could see his little ribs!)

Baby's butt & little legs
Our baby, the alien (his head on the right & tummy on the left)

Baby's profile (the ultrasound tech said he was giving me kisses)

Baby's little foot

Baby's hand, arm, ribs, and head

Baby's Heartbeat!

We had our first pre-natal appointment today! I was very excited, but not so much at the same time. I hate needles! And I knew I would have to get blood drawn and I was hoping (or not...) to get a flu shot & H1N1 shot. But what we heard before 5 vials of blood and an H1N1 shot, was totally worth it!

I was hoping that we would have an ultrasound done, as I had heard from several people that they had had one done at about 12 weeks. We didn't. But our nurse midwife, Carrie, did bring in a fetal Doppler to listen to the baby's heartbeat. Carrie found our baby's heartbeat right away. It was so fast! Then she moved it around and found my heartbeat. My heartbeat was about 70 beats per minute (bpm) and baby's was about 150 bpm. More than twice as fast! It was such an amazing sound to hear!

I was convinced that our baby is boy, but after I read some folklore on the sex of the baby, I'm not so sure. The site I found said that if the baby's heartbeat is over 140 bpm, then it's a girl. That doesn't totally convince me either though, because the same site also said that if you don't have morning sickness, then it's a boy (and I haven't really been sick at all). So at this point I'm not convinced either way. I will be happy either way, but Adam still is leaning more towards a boy.

Carrie also recommended that we have a level II ultrasound done, because we have some genetic defects that run in the family. From what I could find, a level II ultrasound is a very detailed ultrasound that shows your baby a lot more clearly.

Our due date was calculated to be June 1 (I calculated June 2, we must be pretty close) and our next appointment will be at about 16 weeks.

Organic Midwives

We had our first "class" for baby this week. It gave us a little information about nurse midwives and about how I should be taking care of myself & baby.

I still like the idea of going with a nurse midwife to deliver our baby, but we both agreed that nurse midwives seem to be a little over the top with somethings. For example, I am all about trying to eat healthy, but the nurse midwife giving the class (who is also the nurse midwife for our first pre-natal appointment next week) was all into buying everything organic. I guess it would be nice, if everyone could afford it, but there's no way. She also said not to drink anything out of plastic. I understand wanting to avoid the BPA, but there's no way we can purchase everything in metal containers or paper cartons. I will stick with my BPA-free Nalagene and keep buying the products I am buying.

She also wanted us to throw out all our cleaning chemicals and use nothing but vinegar & citrus oils (or something). Now, I will stay away from them (Adam cleans the bathrooms anyway, plus I really do hate the smell), but I'm not about to throw them all out and have my house smell like we were dying Easter eggs all the time.

I'm not trying to rag on nurse midwives. After all, we are still going with nurse midwives for this pregnancy (and probably any others we have in the future). They want mother and baby to be as healthy as they can be, but they also understand that we can't make all these changes to our life (and quite frankly, many people can't afford some of them). They're all good suggestions, I guess, but put them all together, and it's a little over the top for me.

The Cat's Escaping from the Bag...

I am a little frustrated & upset. Shortly after we found out we were pregnant, we told our parents, asking them not to say anything to anyone until the second trimester. Adam actually told his oldest brother, Jon, right away when they were hunting, and soon after called his sister, Jacque, in California to tell them. He was waiting to tell his other brothers, Charles & Ben, until he saw them though. He saw Charles when they went to get the cabin ready for deer hunting and told him, and when he saw Ben at the gun show, he was going to tell him, but he already knew.

I guess Adam's mom had told all their friends at the bar, one of which lives below Ben. So of course Ben found out from this fellow, and Adam wasn't able to tell his brother that we are expecting our first child. I feel bad that Adam lost that chance, and that Ben had to find out from someone who isn't even family that his own brother is going to have a baby.

Adam wasn't surprised, as I guess it's hard for his mom to keep a secret. I know it's exciting news (trust me, it really is for us!), but we would like to wait until we are out of the first trimester for the rest of the world to know. The rate of miscarriage is pretty high in the first trimester and if that happens to us, it will be a lot harder on us if more people know. Which is why we've picked & chosen who we've wanted to know.

I was disappointed also to find out that his mom had started to tell someone else, when my sister-in-law nudged her to tell her that some people (her kids... our nieces & nephews) don't know yet. And she told the lady to "just keep it between them." But one of our nieces found out. Of course she is really excited, but it's hard for a 7-year-old to keep a secret from all her brothers & sister.

At Thanksgiving, we had planned on telling everyone, since it would be close to the end of the first trimester & all the family would be together anyway. But from the sound of it, a lot of the extended family already knows. I'm disappointed that we've had our exciting announcement of our first child stolen from us. But we've learned our lesson from next time.

Week 7 Growth Spurt = Not Fun for Mommy

At the end of week 6 and through most of week 7 I was feeling pretty great. My stomach didn't hurt, I was eating well, my back would hurt sometimes, and of course I am always tired, but it was pretty easy to deal with. But the last couple days of week 7 I started to get my stomach ache back. I remember reading that during week 7 your baby grows a lot, and the brain cells are developing very quickly. I'm wondering if the baby is stealing all the food in my stomach for the energy to grow and leaving me with a stomach ache & hunger pains!

Adam agrees with me now, that I do look like I'm just a very little bit pregnant. You can't tell through my clothes, but if I lift up my shirt, and you know what my belly looked like before... well, it doesn't look like that so much any more.

Excitement!

I think the nerves are calming down a little now, and we're getting more used to the idea of being parents. It's starting to get exciting!

We have told my parents and brother, and his parents, and some of his siblings. My mom is so excited to be a grandma! She found some Winnie the Pooh fabric to make a crib quilt for the baby, and we're talking about how to decorate the nursery. My brother is super excited to be an uncle! Adam's mom was talking about finding stuff at the thrift store when she went last week.

We are starting to look at names. I already know that if it is a girl, I would like to name her after my grandmother who died a few months before our wedding. We're not sure if we'll use her name, or a variation or nickname, because Adam's not totally sold on the whole name. For a boy I always like Michael & Jonathon, but those names are already in Adam's family (his dad & his brother). But, we have a short list of boy's names picked out, though I think I know which one I like best already!

Almost Real...

I think for Adam and I, its becoming more and more real each day that we, with the help of God, have created a child together, and about 8 months from now, are going to welcome him/her into this world.

For Adam, I think what made it more real this week was having the doctor confirm the pregnancy. The nurse that confirmed with us, sat down to give us a few details of what we needed to do next. I need to make an appointment for when I'm 8-10 weeks along. I was hoping that I could stay with our doctor's office, since I have been there for quite a while. But, I found out that if I work with either of the doctors there, that neither of them will actually deliver our baby. So I'll have to do some research to find someone who will be with us throughout the whole pregnancy.

For me, its how this tiny person (that's about the size of a sesame seed right now) growing inside me is totally affecting my stomach! I can't eat as much at each meal, because my stomach will hurt. I can't go long without eating, because my stomach will hurt. I can't bend over, because my stomach will hurt. I wake up, and my stomach hurts. (You get the picture...) Luckily, so far I haven't thrown up (thank God... P.S. If you're reading this God, please keep it that way!).

4 Weeks + 1 Day

5 Weeks + 2 Days

Finding Out & Telling the New Daddy

I was on the senior retreat with my students, figuring my "friend" would meet me there. (She was supposed to show up Sunday, and we were gone from Wednesday through Thursday.) Thursday while I was there, I decided to talk to one of my co-workers who had a baby recently to find out how she found out she was pregnant. She was tracking, as I have been, and so knew her cycle pretty well. She said when she didn't start her new cycle on the day she was supposed to, she took a pregnancy test, and it was positive.

In my tracking, I have found that I do not have a very consistent lutel phase (which is always supposed to be exactly the same for a woman). That has made it difficult to figure out if I have missed my period or if I have a longer lutel phase this month. Four days after I was supposed to start a new cycle, I was on my way home from the retreat, and decided to stop by the store and pick up a pregnancy test (even though at this point, I was 99% positive I was pregnant) and something gender-neutral that said "I love Daddy" on it, as a way to tell Adam.

My plan was to get up in the morning after he left for work, take the test, then put the bib and the positive pregnancy test on his sink. But on my way home, I got a phone call asking if he could leave for hunting that night. I told him we'd talk about it when I got home. Well, I thought, that kinda spoils my plan, but then I thought I could just take it over the weekend and have the surprise waiting for him when he got home.

When I got home, he asked me about my "friend" and if she showed up. I wouldn't give him a direct answer, I just smiled and would ask what he thought. He was pretty sure that my "friend" was still hanging out with me. So we moved on to talking about him going hunting, and I was reluctant to say yes, as I wanted him around. I wanted to be able to talk to him about our new adventure. I just wanted him there. He really wanted to go, since it was the first time his nephew would get to hunt, and as I didn't have a good reason for him to stay, I said he could go. Then I thought, well, maybe if he knows that we're pregnant, he'll want to stay home with me. So while he was starting to pack and put things together, I set the "I love Daddy" bib on top of his pants on the bed. I hadn't taken the test, so I couldn't show him any proof just yet.

When he walked back into the room he saw it and in a shocked voice with a nervous smile on his face, asked what it was and why I put it there. I asked him why I would put it there, and he said, "But you said that you got it!" I reminded him that I didn't say anything, but rather he said I did. He asked if I had gotten a positive test, and I told him I hadn't, and I didn't have to pee. So he didn't entirely believe me yet. So he kept packing and ran to the store for some last minute items for the trip.

After he got back, we had dinner (which he made!... frozen pizza of course...), and a short while later I had to pee. So I took the test and we counted down the 3 minutes. While we waited, I informed Adam that he probably had much better aim that I did, so he should take the next one. After 3 minutes, I was 100% sure we were pregnant, and Adam believed me. Of course he still went hunting though... but told me he would be with me the rest of the pregnancy... except when he goes deer hunting in November.

Dreams of Pregnancy...

After two months of trying to conceive with no success, the thought passed through my mind, "What if we can't conceive?" I haven't paid too much attention to the question, as I've read that if you've been trying for a year, and still aren't successful, then "they" suggest that you see a fertility specialist. After only two months, I'm not overly worried.

Another thing has put my mind at ease as well. The other night, I had a dream. In this dream, I was pregnant, and just barely starting to show. I don't know why, but I was kind of trying to hide it by the way I stood. I also didn't touch my tummy, because I thought people would then realize I was pregnant. I don't know why I was trying to hide it, and I don't really remember much past that. But, it did put my mind at ease to have a dream where I was pregnant.

Accuracy of the Magical Stick

The magical stick kind of lied to us. It said that I wasn't pregnant (which was true), but we figured that meant that my "friend" would be coming along on our camping trip. She didn't. Which made us wonder all weekend... was the stick lying? I know I've read that often these tests can't detect the pregnancy hormone until you are 5 weeks pregnant (one week after your missed period, which of course by then you're already pretty sure... or you're thinking that something is wrong with you). So all weekend we weren't sure if we were waiting my "friend" to show up, or if we were expecting.

Throughout many of our "nothing yet" conversations over the weekend, Adam began to realize that he really wasn't ready to have a baby, and I was beginning to realize that I wasn't ready to share Adam's attention with someone else quite yet (only three months of marriage isn't enough for me!).

We got back from camping on Sunday, and we decided that if it was still "nothing yet" that I would take another pregnancy test on Wednesday. But my "friend" showed up on Monday. I was slightly relieved, but slightly disappointed too.

Since we're really not sure what we want, we decided to wait at least for the next three months. (Counting out the nine months, we found that the baby would be born in the summer. Ideally, we would like him/her to be born in April or May so that we can maximize the length of time that we're home with the baby before he/she needs to be in daycare.) Of course I figure, now that we're not trying to conceive, we'll get pregnant. We shall see what happens.

Week 3?!?!

The start of a new month, meant the start of a new chance to conceive. We still weren't sure what we wanted, so we still went for "what ever happens, happens." Though the more I thought about it, I decided I was a little more towards waiting until next year to bring a child into the world. I wanted to know what Adam thought though too (as he's half of the problem, or solution, depending on how you're looking at it). So when I asked him, he said he was 50/50 split right down the middle. (For those of you that don't know Adam, this is a very typical response.) So I implored deeper, hoping he would want to wait too, "Are you even 1% more one way or the other?" Of course it took him a while to answer, but he said he was probably more towards having a baby than not. Now that threw me off, as I had been the one asking since before we were married, "When can we have one?" And he had been the one with some comment on how long I would have to wait. But, now the tables have turned. The more I stewed over his 1%, the more comfortable I became with the idea myself.

On about August 10th, I ovulated. Of course we wouldn't know until about August 22nd whether or not we should convert our space bedroom, consisting of a futon & Adam's bookshelf full of sci-fi books, into a nursery. Oh yes, and did I mention that we are leaving to go camping the day before we would know. We really do have impeccable timing when it comes to trips!
Strangely enough, I started getting some cramps on the 16th and 17th. Humm, I wonder if it really is this time, or if it's more of that hypochondriacy setting it, just like last month. But now today, my head feels all woozy and I just want to go back to bed. Though, part of that could be because I told Adam to wake me up (and make me get out of bed!) when he got home from work at 7am. I went to bed at 10:30pm or so last night, so I got eight hours, but who knows.

While I was up until 10:30pm last night, I was looking at a website that has a calendar week-by-week, of what your baby looks like and how it's growing, and what your body is doing. The one new thing that I did learn was that when they are counting how far along you are in your pregnancy, they start counting from the start of your last menstrual cycle. So they say you're two weeks pregnant, before you even conceive. Which puts me in week 3. I showed Adam the yellow bubbles that represented the cell mass that our baby would be (if we are indeed pregnant). I'm not sure he knew exactly what to make of it, but I could see a hint of pride & happiness in his little blob (though he denies it!).

I guess we'll ask the magical stick on Friday before we go camping, "who's going with us?"

To pee... or not to pee...

Adam and I finally decided that we didn't have an opinion on whether or not we wait to have a baby, or have one now. So we're pretty much just winging it... if we end up pregnant, great... if not, great!

We started decided this last (lunar) month. As the end of the month came closer (and our road trip came closer), and I realized that I didn't know if my "friend" would be coming along on our trip, or if we would be bringing someone new. I read up on a bunch of different sites about different signs of pregnancy (maybe I could tell before my "friend" showed up... or didn't.) Then of course you become a pregnancy hypochondriac, and all of the signs & symptoms you've read about, you suddenly have!

I wasn't to sure if I was excited about this new possibility, or not. But I liked the idea of not knowing much better than knowing (because I really didn't know what I wanted). The day before we left on our trip, we decided I would pee on a magical little stick that would tell us who would be joining us on our trip.

It's not like it's a hard test to take, and since we didn't know what we wanted the results to be, there was no way to fail the test either. But for some reason, I was still nervous to take it. Adam decided to take a nap (I don't know why, he doesn't get up until 2:30am! Alright, maybe I do.), and I decided that would be a good time to use this magical stick. I read all the directions (for what I believe was the third time... I guess you can't be too prepared for a test that you can't fail!), and did exactly as instructed. I won't go into all the details, but after I waited the three minutes (down to the very last second, I watched the oven timer) as instructed, I picked up the magical stick and it had one line. Now, as I had read the directions three times, I knew well that the one line meant that my "friend" would be joining us on our trip.

Sure enough she showed up the next day, the day we hit the road bound for Oregon.