Under Construction!!!!!

Well, we have begun construction on renovating the unfinished room above the garage. I think the ultimate goal is for it be finished and usable when we are complete. By we, I do not mean a collective we. It is SR’s dad, MR doing all the work. Since I have as much technical skills as you can cram into a thimble, I am more than happy for him to take on this project. I think the current plan is to finish that room and make it into the new office/playroom and turn the current office into the kid room. We will see. I had an idea today that we could finish off that room, knock the wall out and make a large multiuse room that served as office and guest room while making the current guest room the kid room. At this juncture just about all options have been floated and I am sure we will wind up going with the first one mentioned.

We are also the proud new owners of a diaper genie. For all of you with kids you know exactly what this is, for those without, its basically a high tech trash can that you can put diapers of questionable smell into and lock away said smell and germs. A shout out to JT and TT for picking that up for us. It was great visiting with them yesterday, we miss them not living in the area in more.

SR continues to be in great spirits and good health, knock on wood. We will confirm that in a week or so with a visit to the doctor. That’s about all I have for now. Peace. DC

Dan says that I need to post ... so here I am, after an evening at water aerobics, hair still damp from the pool, posting.

Many changes have taken place since the first days of this pregnancy. I am certain that a total of about 25 people now know, not including the strangers that my mother-in-law has likely told in the past two weeks. Baby Crawford is now about two and a half inches long and from what I have read, most of its systems are fully formed. Hmmm...that's kindda cool.

Other changes - I don't like meat. I am hopeful that this will change sometime by week 14. Because I am a carnivore. And lately, I have been choking down chicken just to make sure I get the nutrients that I need. I am now the proud owner of a maternity swimsuit.

Our doctor's visit on Sept 12 was an exciting one. Our baby was bouncing around like crazy and the doc was extremely pleased with its movement. This made us excited and allowed us to open up a little more. Dan still played Mr. Funny and when the doctor asked if we had any questions, Dan piped up and said "Yeah...is my wife gonna be stupid for the rest of this?" That's right folks...he was referring to Pregnancy Brain - yes there is a term for it. So, I have been a little preoccupied lately and have lost my keys, been mostly unfocused, and I am sure there is other stuff. But seriously ... "is my wife gonna be stupid...." Oh dear. Nonetheless, it made the doc laugh, which I suppose is good. And luckily for Dan, I found the humor in it as well.

So here we are - at about 12.5 weeks. 6.5 months to go, or so. We have an attic space to finish off before baby comes or else I am not quite sure where we will fit all the extra gear. I have been having nightmares that we have to move ourselves, our dogs and all of our stuff into one room in my parent's house...and then I realize "we are having a baby....we have to find a place for all of that stuff, too." Could this nightmare, and my OCD anxiety be causing the headaches ... it's a possibility.

Another visit to the Doc

We went to the doctor and Friday. Things appear to be progressing well. We got some more pictures and hopefully one day we will actually open the brand new printer/copier/scanner combination we bought, hook it up, and use it to send out some pictures of the Area 51 baby.

The doc visit was cool except for the part of waiting over an hour to be seen by the doctor. He gave us some sage advice; avoid Friday and Monday appointments like the plague. On Friday, crazy concerned women rush to the doctor because they are about to go out of town and want to make sure everything is ok before they leave. Mondays are bad because crazy concerned women experienced something over the weekend and need to rush to the doctor to make sure all is ok. I can make comments now because we are not that far along and the crazies have not set in too much.

At the doctors office they make you visit with all the doctors in the practice since more times than not, Mother Nature does not cooperate and women go into labor when their doctor is not on call. Therefore, it’s a good idea to meet all the doctors so you will be somewhat familiar with them if they are the one brining your bundle of joy into the world. The guy we met this time is awesome. So awesome in fact that SC would consider switching to him as her regular doctor. This guy was over the top nice and before the exam sat us down in his office and chatted with for a while before we got down to the nitty gritty. Because of the earlier miscarriage he wanted to do an ultrasound so we were lucky to get another done, apparently they are not always done at this visit.

Watching the ultrasound is incredible. The only bad thing I can think about them is that before they were invented families could not see this miracle in action like we can today. On Friday, the kid was up and moving around like crazy. Even the doctor kept commenting on how active he/she was being. We could see it moving around, you could see arms, legs, and although I joked about a paternity test earlier, it appears to be mine because it looks like the kid may have no ass. The doctor said that he could stay in and watch this little guy/gal move around all day. SC commented on how miraculous this all was and unfathomable how things work. The doctor wholeheartedly agreed which was of some concern, but his excitement and exuberance was much appreciated.

The appointment went so well we have started to leak the news out a little more. Don’t get me wrong we have not taken out an ad in the paper, but we made a few calls to our families to let them in on the big secret. We are still a little nervous, but we will keep praying things progress as they are suppose to do and hopefully in early April we will have a new addition to the family. I think the dogs know something is up as well. You can tell from the picture that Wrigley is doing her homework to make sure everything is ready.

I apologize for the long delay in posts, but we both have been wicked busy. I guess that’s about all for now. Peace out! DC

Hey Hey Hey

Sigh...what am I sighing about? Eating healthy. Not something that I want to do. So, what's on my preferred menu right now? Let's see - potatoes in the form of french fries, potato chips, bagels with lots of cream cheese, pizza, chinese food. For those of you that know me, eating carbs is something that I made a conscious effort to keep out of my diet. Now, it's "no carb left behind," or fat for that matter. Sure, I am pregnant, but what exactly does this mean? Some think that it means a green flag for whatever you're in the mood for. Personally, I love this way of thinking. However, practically, I know that if I continue this it will not be the baby's fault that mom has gained so much weight.

Today for lunch, I marched myself to the Loop on Duke's campus and ordered a grilled chicken salad with low-fat ranch. Mmmmm. The entire time that I have been eating it, I keep saying to myself, "this is the best salad ever." Is it working? No. But that's okay. The ranch is good, would be better if I had french fries to dip in it. The croutons are delicious as well. Alas, this is my effort to have a healthier me, and hopefully an easier time losing the weight after baby comes. Meanwhile, I am thinking that the "Fat Albert" look isn't so bad....

Sharing the News

Well....the official announcing has begun. Yes, we did already tell Dan's mom, but that's only because Dan was overly anxious to tell someone. For me, the official announcing didn't start until last night, when we broke the news to my parents - who apparently had already been gossiping with other family members about whether or not I was pregnant. Apparently my lack of drinking was an indicator. First of all, the lack of drinking and the zero caffeine happened two months before the onset of my condition...so why can't people just accept that I went for a lifestyle change? To be honest with you the lifestyle change had to happen. After the miscarriage in late January, I felt completely out of control - although still not drinking all the time, when I did drink, it was getting out of hand too quickly. So, in an effort to pull myself together and prove that I could be disciplined, I quit drinking and I quit caffeine as another form of discipline. So there you go.

So anyway, breaking the news to my parents went well. Although they are ready to be much more excited than I am. I am still waiting for the call from the docs office to say, "We reviewed your blood work, and....we're sorry..." I know that I should think positively and although those positive thoughts don't surface where they are visible, they are there - trust me. They are there when I walk past the maternity store in the mall, they are there when I stroll by the children's section at Target. They are there. But, I can't let them flow externally yet, because I am not ready. If I embrace this for what it is, I am worried about major let down. And having gotten further than I did the last time, seen a heartbeat and finally gotten my "new pregnant lady" package from the OB Nurse, imagine how emotionally broken I will be this time around. Last time, the only proof I had that something was actually happening was a stick with two pink lines on it - and I was thrust into emotional trauma for days, weeks and months. I don't want to do that again. So, when will I allow myself to let the emotions pour out of me...I don't know. I spoke with a woman recently who had a miscarriage with first pregnancy and when she got pregnant again, she couldn't embrace it until 14-15 weeks. So, this is normal.

That's all for now. I rather un-funny post for me ... my apologies to the readers.

Some Big Decisions to be made...kind of!!!!

Finally, we get the bag of stuff from the doctor. I knew there had to be a bag of stuff that went along with this whole process. We went back to the doctor today for blood work and OB Nurse visit. It wasn’t too bad, the entire thing took about 1 ½ hours. There was peeing in a cup, about a gallon of blood withdrawn, and then an hour long meeting I am sure my wife wishes I could have skipped out on.

I tend to bring humor to the situation. Honestly, I think the nurse doing the interview liked it, I mean if you have to sit and talk about this stuff with person after person, day after day, some comic relief every now and then would be nice. Personally the comment about the scratchy itchy bumps was funny.

The good thing to come out of this is SC seemed to be a little more at ease about the process. Especially when the nurse told her that they usually don’t have the OB Nurse visit unless they are positive things are moving down the right path. This was also reassuring to me as well since we both have been a little reluctant to let the emotion flow. I blame the first experience earlier in the year for our cautiousness.

We have some big decisions to make, like do we want to take the birthing class all day from 8-5 or do we want to do the 5 week 2 hour sessions, two half days? I mean this is some serious decisions to think about. Plus there are some other things SC may do like the water yoga for people in her situation. She would enjoy that immensely and I hope she does it. We also got the schedule of visits and it appears early on we don’t have that many visits early on, but we do get to go back next week. We can find the sex out hopefully at the visit after that, I think sometime in week 15-18. Keep your fingers crossed and pray for healthy no matter what.

I know some desire an XX chromosomal set, I think having the XY would be fun and I can teach them to play sports and all the stuff that goes along with that along with music lessons. I always wished I could have taken piano lessons when I was little. My main desire is a healthy process and that God’s will be done. I would also pray that whatever it is cannot like soccer. I would be a terrible parent if I let the kid play soccer. There are so many other actual sports out there; we have to stay away from soccer at all costs. I am outta here for now. DC