Why seek out new life, when you can create it from the comfort of your own home?

We just decided to renew our least at our current place, so that means that we can finally start putting the nursery together. Bionca is excited that she finally gets to paint and start setting up. She’s really feeling that nesting urge, and so that has been driving her crazy. We have already bought a bookcase that she wanted, and has the crib picked out. We were going to buy it this week, Bionca was worried about getting it home. We’ll likely take care of that next week.

I’m looking forward to setting it all up as well.  We’ve been on hold, since we have been thinking about moving to a different place, but now it’s like we can finally progress. This week we had our hospital tour, and next week our classes start. It’s like everything is finally starting to happen. We’ll even have our hospital bag packed next week as well. We are getting to the endgame.

It’s funny. The first trimester seemed to be so full of activity, but the second was basically uneventful. That’s part of the reason why things have slowed down here on this blog, just because there wasn’t much to tell. I don’t think that will be the case now, all the way up to delivery. There is so much to do, but I think that we have plenty of time for it though. We’ll keep you posted.

I didn’t expect yesterday to be as momentous as it was for me. I’m not saying that I didn’t think that it would be important to me, but I didn’t expect how it would change my view of my unborn child. The thing is that it really solidified the experience for me.

Before yesterday, Peanut was “the baby.” I didn’t have a strong sense of the sex of the baby, the way that some parents do. It was always both sexes, and neither. It was this abstract and indeterminate thing not unlike Schrödinger’s cat. Yesterday, Peanut’s waveform collapsed, and now we know that I have a son.

This turns out to make a huge difference emotionally to me. No longer am I referring to him as if he were some strange object, but instead as a real person. He has a gender, he has a face (though I have yet to see a good picture of it), and he even has a name. (Don’t worry, if you don’t know it already, I won’t tease you much longer.)

He’s my son.

My jeans have been getting smaller and smaller (I was using a hair tie to keep them together). I have been feeling very sad about getting fat (I know it’s not getting “fat”, but getting baby). As a girl who has struggled with my weight all my life, this pregnancy has really played with my emotions about getting bigger.

So, today I went to the mall to try to find some jeans for my new body. I first went to JCPenny and tried on a few pair but wasn’t impressed with the selection or how they looked on. So, I moved on to Motherhood. I was so excited when I walked in the store and I saw they had a Plus size section. I was positive that I was going to need to order on line. The ladies in there were so super nice and were happy to help me without being pushy, a big plus! They pulled a few styles from both the regular and plus sizes just to see. I went in to the fitting room with pretty low expectations but was willing to give it a shot. I tried on the regular size jeans first, and wow, did they fit great! I was so happy. They looked so good on and made my butt look great, a must for a good pair of jeans. Next, I tried on the plus jeans. They were too big! I felt skinny for the first time in like, forever! I tried on other styles but none fit as nice as the first pair. I just had to get them.

So, now I have a new jeans. A pair that don’t make me feel fat. A pair that as Peanut grows, my pants will accommodate my ever expanding belly. Who knew that jeans made for women whose wastes are expanding daily could make me feel so good?

I’ve been thinking about a list of things that I want to do as a parent, taken as either advice from other parents, or in observing them. So here’s my list.

• Don’t worry about remote possibilities. — Many parents often get very worried about things that are very unlikely, and I don’t want to be one of them. If “something bad” has only a 1% chance or less of happening, I’m not going to worry about it.
• The baby won’t break if I touch it. — Too many new parents are scared that they are going to break their baby, but after watching the nurses at Winnie Palmer, I have no fear of that. As long as their heads are supported, you can pretty much flop them around as much as needed.
• Take time to be an adult. — I know that we are not going to want to spend time away from our our child, but once we have a schedule down, we need to start letting the grandparents watch the baby while Bionca and I go off and just be us for a little while. It’s easy to lose yourself in your role as a parent.
• Don’t try to be a perfect parent. — It’s impossible, and most kids come out just fine despite the occasional screw up by their folks.
• Start early, and be consistent. — Children learn patterns of behavior early on, and especially when they are very young, they need structure and consistency in their lives. Set the proper patterns early, and stick to them.
• Take pictures. — I don’t take near enough. Maybe set a goal of at least one a day.

I’m sure that I will think of more, but I think that is a good start. It will be fun to look back on this is a few years, and see how well I have done, and if/how my attitudes have changed.

Sunday morning started out much like any other. Bionca and I lazily woke up, contemplated breakfast, and of course I wanted biscuits and gravy.  Unfortunately we didn’t have a few of the things that we needed, so I agreed to brave the freezing weather and go to the store.  It was a simple list, and one that I might get any day, but after I got there, I got a text message from Bionca.

Can you maybe pick up a pregnancy test?

Of course this wasn’t a complete surprise.  She’d been having classic symptoms lately, like nausea, fatigue, etc., but given the problems that she has had in the past, we dismissed them as just feeling under the weather or not sleeping well enough. It was wasn’t until her boss mentioned that her breasts looked bigger, on Friday that get her seriously thinking about it, .  We had talked about it, of course, but we still didn’t believe.

So after getting the message, I figured that I would humor Bionca and get one.  I stood there looking at the pregnancy tests, baffled.  They all make similar claims, and I pretty much figured that this was a wasted exercise, so my first inclination was just to get one of the generic ones, but I thought that on the off-chance that it came pack positive, Bionca wouldn’t be satisfied, so I picked up one of the major brand boxes and went home.

I didn’t think much about it, and the day progressed much as all of the Sundays that we have spent together up to this point. That was until about noon when Bionca came to me all excited and sort of scared and showed me the symbol that we had been hoping to see for a few years.  Positive.

Even though we saw the positive sign, we still weren’t sure what it really meant, since one of the lines looked lighter than the other, and we didn’t know if that meant that it was simply a negative, since it just showed a little. After rechecking the directions, and checking the results a few times, it became clearer that we weren’t imagining things. We were pregnant!

Of course we both started crying. It was this amazing and unlikely event that we had hoped for, but never thought would happen. After all, we were looking into fertility options just that week! I was immediately excited.  Once I knew that it was truly positive, I didn’t reserve any emotion; I was just blissfully happy, but Bionca just could not believe it. She wanted to take a second test to confirm.

Then we had a decision: do we tell everyone or not?  I supported telling everyone, but Bionca was hesitant. She was fearful of telling everyone before we got through the high risk time, and before we confirmed with the doctor, but she agreed that we could tell a few select people.  We made the calls, and it was almost too perfect, since when we called our respective families, they were all together, and with just two calls and we were able to tell everyone at once.

Of course they were all was excited and shocked. It was great hearing everyone’s reactions. When we gave them the news we made sure to let them know that it was still early, but it looked good.  The funniest part was when Bionca and I finished our shower, we found several messages, on all of our phones, from her family wanting to know the results of the second test. They were just so over-whelmed, and since Bionca wasn’t sure, so she took another.  This one changed almost instantly: positive again.

It's confirmed!

That just sealed it for me. Any doubt that I had was gone, and I was just grinning like a fool.  I would stop every few moments, and just get giddy with joy like I had heard it the first time all over again.  When we went over to Heather’s it was more of the same. I couldn’t concentrate, and I couldn’t think. The only thing that was going through my head was, We’re going to have a baby!

Now, in my joy, I wasn’t reduced to a complete idiot. I knew that there were still hurdles to overcome, and possibilities to consider. I knew that mom had several miscarriages, before Heather and me, but none of that mattered. The thing is that I felt was that we finally had hope.  Even if Bionca lost the baby, it would just mean that we would have to try again. If not menstruating in months wasn’t enough to keep us from conceiving, then nothing would stop us. We will have our family!