Baby Pictures!

As usual, I'm not keeping up with updating this blog daily like I had originally planned. On the bright side though, the nursery is almost finished and Dawn and I have gotten a few other big projects out of the way in the last few weeks. But the little guy is sneaking up on us. His due date is less than six weeks away, and in three weeks Dawn will have carried him "to term," and he could show up at any time.

To round out the week, I thought I'd share the only pictures we have of the little guy. When Dawn was 19 weeks along, we had an ultrasound done at Iowa Methodist Medical Center. Normally, you don't get to have an ultrasound unless the pregnancy is "irregular." I use that term for lack of a better one since there are a lot of reasons that an ultrasound would be performed. Examples would be when the mother has gestational diabetes or some other disorder, or a baby that is growing a little slower. Or in the situations of twins or triplets. Usually though, I think prenatal caregivers like to give the parents at least one ultrasound so they can look on their child. If the pregnancy is not in need of an additional ultrasound but you as parents would like one, I think you're entitled to one, it just wouldn't be covered by insurance. In our case, our midwife wrote down on the chart that Dawn was measuring "a little small," even though she was measuring about right on where she needed to be at 15 weeks. So we had an ultrasound. And we saw our son.

Seeing the ultrasound is pretty amazing. The images are very clear and in stunning black and white. But the coolest thing about them is that they can kind of see through different layers -- i.e. adjustable x-ray vision glasses or that gun they used in the movie Eraser. I was pretty amazed and think I was smiling the entire time we were in the room. Also, the whole time I was trying to figure out if it was a boy or a girl based on my judgment, because we were really anxious to find out what it was at that time. But throughout the entire procedure the little guy was lying in the wrong position and wouldn't roll over so we could see his stuff. Dawn had brought in some M&Ms and ate those because she'd heard that the sugar would get the baby moving. And he was actually moving a lot without the sugar rush, he just wouldn't show it off for us. So after a while (and after informing us that "sometimes you just don't get to find out because they won't turn the right way") they started pushing on Dawn's stomach and moving the bed up and down to get him to move. No dice. They took his head measurements and measured his arms, legs, etc., and came back to get a shot of his posterior and -- BOOYAH! -- there it was. But I still didn't know what I was looking for until they told us. The nurse was like, "Do you want to know what it is?" We replied in the affirmative and she showed us the photo at the left and said, "Well, this is his bottom, these are his thighs, and...well..."

I wasn't necessarily hoping for a boy over a girl, I just know that I want to have one of each some day. We don't know exactly how many kids we want to have (we'll see how much Dawn likes pushing the first one out), but we're thinking either two or three right now. We've also really considered adopting a child someday. Who knows. For now we're just worried about one little guy.

I'll sign off with a funny story about when we got in the room to have the ultrasound. The nurse told Dawn to lie down on the bed and asked her "What pregnancy is this for you?" and Dawn (thinking that she had asked something like "What week of pregnancy is this for you?") replied, "Um...nineteen." Hearing that response confused me a little but I just passed it off, thinking that I had heard the question wrong. The weird thing is that the nurse said, "Okay," and wrote it down. Moments later, Dawn said, "Wait. Did you ask how many weeks I am?" The nurse said no and Dawn replied, "Okay I misspoke, I'm 19 weeks along with our first child." And the nurse said, "Oh, okay. I was going to say, 'Wow you look pretty good to be on your 19th kid.'"

Uh...ya think? Not to mention young. Nineteen kids at age 28 would have to be some sort of record.

Happy Midwifery Week!

We just had another two-week pregnancy appointment with Midwife Services (that's how I know that October 7-13 was National Midwifery Week). The appointment went well once again -- Dawn is measuring right on track for being 32 1/2 weeks along, and our son's heart rate was in the low 130s to high 140s, which is right where we want it to be. Dawn's weight gain is consistent and right on track, and her blood pressure is excellent.

For those of you that are wondering, we chose to utilize the services of a midwife through Iowa Methodist Medical Center not only because we like the midwives that work there, but because we feel that the care is a little more personal. We have nothing against any other type of prenatal care, it's just nice to know that the midwives (who are all Registered Nurse-Midwives) are with you the entire labor up until delivery (whereas doctors might enter the room 15 minutes beforehand). It's comforting that the person delivering the baby is with you from the moment you arrive until the end (plus they're all women, which is more comfortable for Dawn).

The birth will still take place at the hospital in a birthing suite, and the midwives really emphasize the control you'll have when the birth takes place (they ask about things like roles, positions, medication, techniques, candles, music, relaxation measures, etc.). Sometimes a doctor can kind of make it his/her birth, because they like to do things the way they've always done things. Again, our choice is not because we have something against doctors. It's basically the same thing anyway. In fact, if there are complications in labor, the midwives bring in an on-call doctor.

So far, everything is going well! Please continue to have Dawn and baby in your thoughts and prayers.

Rubber Baby Bloggy Bumpers.

I guess it’s time for me to update my blog (everyone say it with Cork: “Finally!”), since a few noteworthy things have happened since my last post. Number one (and the only thing really worth mentioning for now), is that we found out Dawn is pregnant. In eight weeks, that is (give or take maybe a week or two, so it’s coming fast). Really fast considering we just found out we were pregnant three days ago.

Actually, we’ve known since April 4*. I had come home to meet Dawn for lunch and she called down from the bathroom for me to come upstairs. She was holding a pregnancy test so I didn’t even need to look at the ultra-confusing plus/minus/blue/pink/dots/smileyface to know what I’d skipped up the stairs for. It was a very exciting moment and the eight months have blown right by. Since finding out, we’ve done some garage-sale shopping, worked on many unfinished home projects, read baby books and taken childbirth classes.

I should let everyone know (who doesn’t already know) that we are having a boy, and he’s due on December 6. We have a first name picked out already and only one other person besides Dawn and myself know that name. Some people think they know it, but they don’t actually know and we don’t tell them they’re wrong. Which makes it even more fun to keep it a secret. We would probably have announced the name to everyone by now, but I keep worrying that someone with the same name is going to become the next world-renowned murderer or cult leader (all of you who named a child Orenthal James in early 1994 know what I’m talking about). So we’re going to hold out until the tiny dude comes out and let everyone know then. Middle names are open to suggestion.

Let me try and quickly break down how things have kind of gone down (from my perspective anyway) for the first eight months (also known for prospective fathers as the “what do I do?” months). Well basically, it’s super-exciting for a month or so because you’re not technically supposed to tell anyone since the pregnancy is not a guarantee. As you probably know, most miscarriages occur during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, and an overwhelming majority occurs during the first trimester. So you kind of sit on this secret for a few weeks and it’s really hard not to tell anyone. When you finally are in the “safe zone” for telling people, it’s a lot of fun. But not telling people is hard, and it’s especially weird when your wife isn’t feeling good every time a couple wants to hang out or something. You’re kind of like, “Yeah, it’s some weird coincidence that she’s always sick when you want to hang out,” but you’re thinking, “Boy, we might as well just tell them. It’s pretty freaking obvious.” But Dawn wasn’t actually sick all that much. She had some dizzy spells and some nausea for a few weeks maybe, but not like I’ve heard some people have had. All in all, she’s handled this pregnancy better than I could ever have. She has hyper-sensitive senses of smell and taste and didn’t like the sight of raw meat for a while, but other than that she’s pretty much been the same as before she was pregnant aside from the ever-increasing belly size.

It’s probably the only time she’d ever not frown upon me talking about her weight gain, so I’ll let you know that she’s gained something like 28-30 pounds to this point and has not had any complications or red flags. Our midwife said from the beginning that based on Dawn’s Body Mass Index (BMI), that they would like her to gain 30-35 pounds. And it’s all in her stomach, so she’s starting to feel some lower back pain and has had trouble getting comfortable at night for some time now. Add that to the fact that she gets up every five minutes to use the bathroom, and she’s dealing with a lot less sleep than she had hoped (which is probably God’s way of preparing us for the day the little man is hollering from the other room).

[By this point, any woman reading this post who’s had a baby is probably thinking this is pretty boring, but it’s all new to people like us who haven’t been through it before so hang in there]

So you get past the first few months and then dad starts forgetting that mom is pregnant. I did anyway. That probably sounds horribly insensitive, so let me explain. I don’t mean that people were telling me “I heard your wife was pregnant” and I was responding “Really? Crap, that’s right. I forgot.” What I mean is that I didn’t think about it all the time like I did at first. When I thought about my wife during the day, I obviously remembered she was pregnant. But going through my daily routine at work and such, I wouldn’t think about it. Whereas I know Dawn knows that she’s pregnant every second of the day. So that’s kind of weird and it was a time where I tried to do little things for her to let her know that I remembered. But I didn’t do near enough of that. So to all you future fathers-to-be, I tell you right now to try and pamper your wife as much as possible (for the full pregnancy if you can, not just the times you see she’s in discomfort or stressed). It’s the least you can do for her hauling around your kid for you for so long.

It’s kind of crazy how Dawn’s energy level changed in that second trimester too. During trimester one, she had some nausea, a lot of anxiety and felt hungry a lot. In trimester two she ate normally for a while and started eating a little more as it went on, but she suddenly had a ton of energy again. She was seemingly back to normal and wanted to start working out and a bunch of other things. Now we’re in the third trimester and she’s a little sluggish basically because she’s at something like 130% of her old weight, and when she eats too much she’s in considerable pain so she has to be careful. And she pees a lot.

For the past month or so we’ve been able to really feel the baby from the outside. She’s been able to feel him from the inside for probably twice as long, but I can feel his head sometimes and see him pushing on her belly from inside and can feel it in the bed at night when he has the hiccups. So now it’s really getting real and new thoughts are starting to surface – anxiety, happiness, stress, and wonder (among others). But bottom-line, we’re so excited to have the little guy come into our life. He’s got his own room that his dad’s still working on completing, and he’s got about 50 new outfits to wear thanks to his grandmothers and Great-Grandma Betty, so he’s ready. And I think we’re ready too.

So now that we’re getting close, I keep telling myself that I’m going to start blogging a little more frequently with baby updates. Keep in mind that this is coming from the same guy who started a blog in the first place thinking that he would update more than twice a year. So check back and see if I’ve been following through with baby updates for the next few months. I’ll try to keep you all in the loop for once, since this is a major life event for us (and for you as our friends and family).

*Statement added for Dustin’s sake.