Christmas Surprise

Ignoring our original plan to keep the secret until 12 weeks, we decided to tell our parents and siblings on Christmas. I wanted it to be special so I did some googling to find ideas. This is what I came up with:

So that we didn't "ruin" Christmas (i.e. make everyone not care about the rest of their gifts), we waited until everyone was done opening and then gave out the cards.  I just made three-- for Barbi, Mom and Annie.

We opened gifts at the in-laws on Christmas Eve so Barbi got hers first.

After Michaela finally finished opening her 1000 gifts on Christmas morning, I gave Mom and Annie thier cards.

I'm so glad we did it this way. Their reactions were priceless. Baby Schwartz will be happy to know that his grandmas and aunt Annie are so excited for his arrival.

First Prenatal Appointment

We had our first prenatal appointment today. It was ... uneventful. They took blood and pee and other than that, it was a lot like a normal gyno appointment. I wasn't even allowed to see the OB for this appointment.

The nurse practitioner spent a good 45 minutes going through some paperwork with us. First, "Do you have any of these problems/diseases?" No. To every single one.

Next came all the "you can't eat/do this..." and the "you must eat/do this..." The list is LONG and honestly, I think some of it is just crap. I'll refrain from telling the Internet which rules I'll be ignoring.

Then came the long list of tests for the long list of terrible and frightening diseases or conditions that our baby could be born with. Some will be administered, some will be optional.

None of it was anything we hadn't heard before, but she still managed to scare the bejesus out of us. Pregnancy is nothing but a whole lotta fear mongering. That makes me sad.

At the end of the appointment, the nurse told me that I was going to be the most boring pregnant woman she saw today. I thought that was a very good thing. You want pregnancy to be boring-- just like plane rides and car trips. Boring is good.

Hrm...

Annie called me today and said, "Any news on your fertility? I think you'll be getting pregnant soon because I've been having really vivid dreams that you have a baby. It's a boy."

"No, Annie, no news." Heh.

Two Pink Lines

We spent 6 months of not trying not to get pregnant (David won't let me say that we were "trying"-- too much pressure associated with that word, I guess.)  On the seventh, I was feeling noticeably weird. Weirder than normal even though I'm certain I'm one of those women who overanalyzes every "symptom" as a possible pregnancy symptom. I'm a little crazy that way. I'll admit it.

After spending Saturday running around with Rebecca, I decided to stop at the dollar store for a few pregnancy tests. Yes, I was relying on $1 pregnancy tests but they're said to be some of the better tests on the market. They just don't have all the flare of a digital read out. I'm pretty sure I'm smart enough to figure out an old school pregnancy test. It was difficult not to test that night but I knew first thing in the morning would give me the best result. I had been charting my temperature so when I woke up on Sunday morning and my temperature was still up, I decided to go ahead with the test.

I wasn't expecting anything. I knew I was testing way early. Even if I was pregnant, I didn't expect it to show this early. I hadn't told David that I bought the tests so I left them in my car overnight. After letting Laika out and giving her some breakfast, I quietly snuck into the garage, grabbed a test and headed to the bathroom. Once the test was prepared (i.e. peed on) and was doing its thing, I realized that I didn't have a timer.

So, of course, I just started counting. Counting to 180.  I kept thinking,
"How long is a second?"
"Am I counting too fast?"
"Should I be saying Mississippi between each number?"

When I got to 90, I started to see something showing up near the T (T for Test, C for Control). "Nah," I thought, "It's early. I'm groggy. I haven't had my coffee yet. The light in here is terrible.  I'm just seeing what I want to see." Counting...counting... "Wow. That second pink line is definitely there. It's light, but it's there. Hm. Now what?"

I hadn't really expected it to go down like that. I had envisioned peeing on a stick, leaving the bathroom and sitting on the couch with David anticipating the result until we heard the beep of the timer on my iPhone. I envisioned going into the bathroom to examine the test and returning to the living room with a smile of excitement and sheer terror. Well, I got sheer terror part right.

David was still in bed. I crawled back into bed to tell him the news but decided that telling him while he was half asleep was not the best idea. I surfed the Internet, watched TV and daydreamed for THREE HOURS before he finally got out of bed. When he finally got up and walked into the kitchen, I told him, "There's coffee...and I'm pregnant." His response? "Whoa." Thanks, Keanu.