So I’ve been threatening to write about all the baby stuff since the beginning and I never got around to it.  There was stuff back when we weren’t telling anybody yet that I wanted to blog about, but now that it is so far removed, it doesn’t seem as important anymore.

Still, I’m a man of my word, so without further ado..

So really having a baby was a plan that was put in action a long time ago.  We knew that we wanted to move closer to our families before then, so we really had to plan the big move to Chicago first.  I know from personal experience that it is a pain to live far from your family and you don’t get to see them very much, if at all.  Plus every time you get a chance for vacation or something, you are always going to visit family.  And besides, why miss out on all the free babysitting? 🙂  So you could say this whole odyssey started quite some time ago.  Then, after we finally got jobs and moved here, Sara didn’t want to immediately have a baby.  I agree with her there…it’s like these people show you good faith by hiring you and then you’re like, “so long chumps, I’m having a baby!”

So finally we got the timeline all aligned and we decided to try to have a baby.  Well surprise, it happened the first month we tried!  (Not that I’m surprised, because I’m all man baby!)(Sorry if that’s too much information!)  Aaaanyway, it was kind of a shock because we didn’t expect it to happen so fast.  It was sort of a mixed blessing; on one hand that is what you’re trying to do but on the other hand it was like, “oh crap, this is really happening!”  We just thought we’d maybe have some more time to kind of come to grips with it.

So we knew we were pregnant by the end of last November.  With Sara’s job and all, her head is full of all kinds of terrible things that can happen to babies.  She can rattle off statistics and risk rates about all kinds of awful stuff.  So naturally, she was a little nervous about a thing or two.  So we decided to wait to tell anybody until we were out of the woods with a couple of things.  This meant that we had to see and stay with our families over Christmas and not breathe a word to them!  I’d say this was one of the hardest parts for me because I’m not super good at keeping secrets. 🙂 

Now a few people say in retrospect that they could tell at that time.  I call shenanigans on that though…pretty bogus to say it after you find out!  Apparently all of our parents were having discussions with their friends saying they were hoping or expecting that we would have kids soon.  One funny story is that my mom was convinced that I told her we would have kids about 3 years after we got married.  I think she’s crazy because I couldn’t have told her any such thing since we never had a 3 year plan!  So apparently she told her friend that she was going to be watching us when we came to visit for her birthday in January because she “knew what to look for.”  Well some sleuth she turned out to be since we saw her several times between when we found out and when we told her and she never noticed!

So we went to see a doctor a couple of times and had a few ultrasounds with her.  These ultrasounds weren’t very exciting.  They just confirmed that Sara was pregnant and that’s about it.  It really wasn’t any more exciting than the pregnancy test.  The big story here was that the doctor was TERRIBLE!  She never could remember Sara’s name or what she was there for or anything.  Sara would always have to explain to her how far along she was and what we were there for and stuff.  I never saw her have a chart or anything, but she should look into that! 

The worst was one time we were waiting at the office for an appointment.  More and more people kept coming in for their appointments, but nobody was getting called back for anything.  Eventually the waiting room was so full that there wasn’t enough chairs or anything and people were standing.  Well, it turns out that the doctor wasn’t even there!!!  The only reason why we even found out was that Sara went up and asked.  Nobody was going to tell us anything.  At one point, after people were getting restless, the receptionist went and hid in the back because it was so uncomfortable out front!  Sara asked, “How long will it be before she gets here?” and the nurse said, “about 10 minutes” and Sara said, “And how long have you been thinking it will be 10 minutes?” and the nurse said, “about 2 minutes.”  So finally, after we had been there for about an hour, the doctor comes in.  She has to walk through the waiting room to get to the back!  So she just stares straight ahead and doesn’t even look at the tons of people waiting for her.  And when we finally got back there, no word of apology or explanation!  Shortly after this we switched insurances so that we could go to the hospital by our house where Sara works which meant switching doctors (aw shucks! :-P)  The doctor we have now is really awesome.

So right around the end of December, Sara started to feel sick.  It was a combination of nausea and wicked heart burn.  Well usually it would be something like the heart burn would lead to the vomiting.  We tried several types of antacids, but this heartburn could not be tamed.  Anyway, this was what really dominated the pregnancy so far.  She feels better now but she was pretty solidly miserable (throwing up at least a few times a week and feeling like she was going to the rest of the time) from around Christmas to about the middle of March.  That is a looong time to feel sick to your stomach!  Now she is down to about once a week, but at least she feels better most of the time.

A lot of people ask about cravings and stuff.  Sara says she never had any cravings, but due to the nausea there were very few things she could eat.  It would be sort of like, “Everything would make me throw up except for this specific thing.”  Well, from my point of view, there’s not much difference between that and cravings!  For several weeks we went through a series of strange things.  “We have to have pancakes for dinner tonight, even though we had them last night.”  “All I can eat today is pretzels.”  “Let’s buy this giant tub of butter cookies, I can’t even look at anything else in the store.”  “Will you go to the store?  I have to eat cheetos today.”  The worst part was, these items usually only lasted a couple of days.  Just when I’d stock up on something she “had” to have, she’d be like, “Oh don’t even show me that, I’ll throw up!”  So then I’d be forced to eat whatever she couldn’t eat anymore trying to clean up all the leftovers.  I didn’t have a lot of choice on what to eat during this time.  She couldn’t even set foot in the kitchen, or at least that’s what she said. 😉  And sometimes she really couldn’t look at anything else in the store.  We would walk through the grocery store and she would have to stare at the floor.  Sometimes she would have to stop and gag a little bit before we could start walking again!

One time I peed while she was in the bathroom and that caused her to throw up.  She was blocking the door so I was like trapped in the bathroom the whole time.  Let me tell you, I learned my lesson about that pretty quick!

So we had a couple of extra tests performed that most people don’t have done to assuage Sara’s fears about genetic abnormalities.  During the ultrasound for one of these I would say had to be the best doctor’s appointment.  This was actually the 3rd time we had an ultrasound, but this was the first time it looked like a baby!  I think this was the first time I heard the heartbeat too, or it might have been the previous appointment.  Hearing the heartbeat was pretty cool.  It didn’t get me too much, there weren’t tears or anything, but I did have a big goofy grin on my face the whole time.  But the best part of the appointment was that the baby was hopping around!  I was surprised at how much it was moving.  I don’t know why I was surprised, but nonetheless it was a pretty cool thing to see.  It would sort of arch its back causing it to bounce up in the air a little and wave its arms and kick its legs.  This was the first time I really felt like it was a person.

So all of the testing came out good and we finally felt comfortable telling our immediate family.  It just so happened to be towards the end of January, so we were going home for my mom’s birthday.  We bought her a frame that says, “I love my grandma” and wrapped it up.  My sister called from Japan so I convinced my mom to open her gifts while she was on the phone so it “would feel like Rachael was really here with us.”  My mom was sort of dumbfounded I think…she just said, “Does this mean what I think it means?”  And Rachael kept asking for more information because my mom kept forgetting to relay things to her on the phone!

So it was good to get it out and tell some people.  It definitely made it seem more real now that some people knew about it.  To be honest, it was kind of nice that someone was making a big deal about it!

The next phase was to go to tons of baby stores.  Sara began buying maternity clothes and researching all the proper brands of things to buy and stuff.  Oh, I almost forgot, Sara bought a couple of baby books and I read one of them, “What to expect when you’re expecting.”  I am glad that I read it, but I think the book kind of stinks.  I got good information out of it (for a while I was always saying, “According to my book…) but for the most part it was filled with unnecessary boring junk that was not really relevant, especially in relation to their dumb pregnancy diet they were trying to push on you.  It could have been a great tiny book, but instead it was a kind of crappy long book.

Anyway, we went to several baby stores and I need a break from them.  Babys R Us is CRAZY!  They have a million choices for everything and it is absolutely chock full of stressed out pregnant couples snapping at each other!  If you go in there your head is really just spinning from all the overwhelming baby stuff.

So at the beginning of March we had the big appointment…time to see if the baby has all its parts!  So we saw a very pornographic picture that revealed that we are going to have a daughter!  Now a lot of people have given us flak about finding out the sex before the baby is born, but I think those people are nut jobs!  First off, it is a surprise whenever you find out and quite frankly there will be enough excitement the day of.  Second, now that we know we can plan accordingly for clothes, decorating the nursery, etc.  Third, we are withholding the name until birth, so there still will be some mystery.  And finally, now everybody knows what kind of presents to buy us! 😉  Seriously though, I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to know.  I made special care to make sure that the baby had all of her fingers and toes, and everything checked out.

The next big milestone was feeling the baby kick.  The first time was probably about the middle of March.  It takes some patience and also your mind can play tricks on you.  “Was that a kick?” “No, it was my racing pulse.” (more on that later)  That was pretty exciting.  Lately, in the past week or so, we were even able to actually see a kick on the outside by staring at her belly while the baby was being active.

So one mildly worrisome thing has come out of all this. (well, one besides the constant unrelenting nausea)  Sara has had really high blood pressure.  One side effect of this was that the doctor ordered a test that required Sara to collect her urine for 24 hours!  Talk about fun! 🙂  So after the last appointment Sara had to go on some blood pressure medication.  Hopefully this doesn’t mean anything.  It can happen during pregnancy, especially since high blood pressure runs in her family.  Hopefully after the baby is born the high blood pressure will go away and she will be able to get off of the medicine.  ::crosses fingers::

So that catches us up the present.  Sara is starting to look pretty pregnant and is wearing maternity clothes full time now.  She eats and sleeps a lot, but those are two things that I am very happy to go along with!  And that’s about it!

Yay, I did it!  I finally wrote all of that down!