Oh, Baby!

Friday, April 26, 2013


When I first started this blog, I always told myself that I would use it to document huge life events. I had this grandiose idea in my head that whenever Nathan and I decided to get pregnant that I would document every little milestone so I would never forget the experience.
Well.
Nathan and I did find out we were pregnant... in September. Which means that I am currently thisclose to having this bun completely baked. Have I updated at all? Nope. I'm pretty sure it says somewhere in my horoscope overview that Leos tend to start big projects and fail to see them through because they get bored. Or lazy. Whichever is probably correct in this case.
I decided that since we are honing in on our estimated delivery date (May 29) that if I want to remember any of this in years to come I should probably crack down and start documenting what I do still remember. I'm pretty sure that thing they say about not having much free time when baby is here is most likely true, and if I do have a spare moment I'm probably going to want to sleep or shower or simply stare at the wall before sitting down to blog about a pregnancy that has come and gone. So, here we go!

How we found out:
I have read that some women just "know" they are pregnant long before a pregnancy test produces that second pink line. I am one of those women. I KNEW I was pregnant on Monday, September 17 when a colleage of mine gave me five extra crayon sets to use when instructing her class so my students' supplies were left alone. My response to her generosity? I sobbed. Over crayons. Fortunately, it didn't happen in front of her, and I was smart enough to realize crying over crayolas as not a typical reaction people have. It was in that moment that I just KNEW, and I left immediately to go to CVS to get a box 3 boxes of tests. I even got the ones that test "six days" sooner as I still hadn't technically missed a period (who has time to wait for that?). I went home and took one and it came back negative. I was so anxious that I didn't care you are supposed to use "first morning" pee. So, the next morning that's exactly what I did. Again, the test turned up negative. At this point, I was beginning to think maybe I really was a loony toon and crying over colored wax was a new personality trait I'd recently developed. I decided to test one more time on Wednesday, September 19. I remember watching the negative line show up and feeling so exasperated that I didn't even wait the three minutes - I just took my shower. When I got out, I decided just to peek at the test. I saw the FAINTEST pink line imaginable. So faint in fact, I wasn't truly convinced it was actually there. By this time, 15 minutes had passed since I'd actually taken the test and I wondered if the steam from the shower caused the line to appear. I walked over to Nathan, who was oblivious to all of these gut instincts I was having about a potential baby, and said, "Nathan. Wake up. I think I'm pregnant." His response? "Why?" And my answer, "Because the test says so."
Remember how I said that pink line was faint? Nathan swore he couldn't see it; still swears to this day that it wasn't really there. That entire day I Googled and rationalized and finally decided that it was probably a false positive (which don't exist in pregnancy test land. Either you make hCG or you don't), or something malfunctioned with the test. I even sent a text to Nathan that said, "The more I think about it, you're probably right. I hope I didn't get your hopes up." I was patient enough to wait until the next morning to test again, and this time, there was no mistaking the second line. We were pregnant. I won't go into how many additional tests I took just to "double check," but believe me, it was a ridiculous amount.

How we told our families:
The first people we told were Nathan's parents, the day we found out. We were too excited and anxious to wait and decided we wanted our close family to know in case something happened. We made the deal that he would tell his parents, and I would tell mine. We were too lame to come up with something creative, so he literally just said, "Angie's pregnant." Ha!
With my parents it was a little different. We stopped by right after we shared the news to Nathan's parents, and my mom was the only one home. Previously, she had bought two baby onesies she planned to cut apart and use in a quilt. I simply told her, "You know those VCU onesies you bought? You might not want to cut them quite yet." She looked at me and asked why, and I said, "Because I think there's going to be a baby to fill them." So original, right? I thought so too, at the time...
My mom made us wait around for my dad to get home so we could fill him in on the newest happening in our lives. When he got home, my mom told him, "Angie and Nathan have something to tell you!" At this point, I felt sort of awkward telling my dad I was pregnant, so I kept fumbling with my words while he waited and Nathan laughed. Really, it was awkward. I ended up asking him if he wanted to guess and he responded, "I'm pretty sure I already know." I finally said, "Looks like you're going to be a grandpa!"
Seriously, an awkward and poorly planned revelation.
The next person we told was my sister. I waited until the weekend to tell her (meanwhile, I'm still peeing on sticks just to do that double-checking thing). She stopped by the house and figured it out after I told her I wanted to show her something. The best reaction came from my brother and his girlfriend. Nathan wasn’t with me when I decided to tell them over Sunday dinner. I remember not being able to get Jake’s attention and finally just blurting, “I have something to say.” Side note: for as long as I can remember, whenever this phrase is stated in my family someone always says, “You’re pregnant!” to the utterer. This time was no exception, and when I said, “Yes,” he and Kelsey just stared at me. Jake said, “No, really,” and Kelsey said, “I don’t know whether you’re serious or joking.” Hey, we kid a lot in my family apparently. When I was finally able to convince them that I was, in fact, serious, they were both super excited. In fact, all of our family members were over the moon, or “tickled” as my mom likes to say.

Our First Ultrasound
Unfortunately, our first ultrasound came at about 6 weeks due to a complication. I went to bed with cramping, and woke up with cramping as well. Don’t google “cramping 6 weeks pregnant” unless you really want to scare yourself silly. I went in to the doctor preparing to hear the worst, but was actually pleasantly surprised to find out it was only an ovarian cyst that had ruptured. During this ultrasound we also got to see the heartbeat. Just a tiny little flutter in a sack of weird cells, but still, there was a heartbeat.

Hearing the Heartbeat
See, this is why I wish I would have kept up with these little highlights. I don’t remember the exact date of when we heard the heartbeat, but I do remember the exact moment because I burst into tears (note, it still wasn’t the sobs that shook me over those damn crayons…). I know it sounds so cliché, but it was seriously the most beautiful noise I’d ever heard, and still is to this day.

Sharing with our Friends
Nathan and I waited until after our Down Syndrome screening was cleared at 12-weeks to make the announcement to our friends, though we did have many that were already speculating (I’m looking at you, Carrie). It was right around Thanksgiving time and we decided we would hang our most recent ultrasound on the refrigerator to see how long it would take people to notice it was my name at the top. Let me tell you, we have some incredibly unobservant friends. Essentially, Nathan had to point to it and say, “Look at this!” before anyone noticed. We shared our news with the world the day after Thanksgiving by posting a picture of me, with what I thought was a baby bump at the time ( I know what a baby bump is now!) and our whiteboard announcing the future arrival of Baby Harris. The news was officially out.


Baby’s First Movements
Again, this is another moment in time that I know I’ll never forget. It was December 14, 2012, the day of the Sandy Hook Shootings. My mom was in the hospital having surgery that day, and I spent the morning watching the news of the shootings unfold in the waiting room. Oh, and looking up inappropriate Grumpy Cat memes with my dad. When we finally were able to see my mom mid-afternoon, I remember standing in her room and feeling these twinges in my abdomen that I had never felt before. I was standing so still and focusing so hard on feeling them again that my grandmother asked me if I was ok. It didn’t happen again right away, but a couple of hours later I felt them again. Over the next few days as they became more frequent, I knew that what I felt in my mom’s hospital room were definitely fetal movements.

Pink or Blue
Up until the point of our 20 week level two ultrasound, I had been asked if I had any feelings as to whether Baby Harris was a boy or a girl probably a hundred times. Sarah, Kelsey and my mom all thought it would be a girl, while Nathan, Jake and my dad all said boy. Typical. Colleagues and friends also had guesses that were all over the place, but I, personally, had no idea. Going into the ultrasound, I would have put money on a boy only because when I dreamed about our baby, it was always a boy I dreamt about. But other than that I never had any feelings one way or another. I remember sitting on the table and watching the ultrasound tech take measurements of what seemed to be every single part of the baby. The ultrasound lasted about 30 minutes, and the gender reveal was the very last part. I was incredibly anxious, especially when baby flipped and the tech made a comment that implied if he didn’t turn around we wouldn’t get to see the goods. Fortunately, the baby turned back around in time for the UT to say, “Let’s see what we’re working with here,” followed by, “Oh yes. Do you see anything?” I was pretty sure I saw a little penis, but of course Nathan said, “No. I can’t see anything.” The tech zoomed in and pointed out the parts, and Nay still said, “I don’t see it.” Haha! Out of the six pictures we received that day two of them are of his boy parts with an arrow pointing directly to them. I’m sure this is just for Nathan. We were too excited to plan a gender reveal party and instead just shared the news via text message with our friends and family.

 
What’s in a Name?
Oh, the name game. Nathan and I went around and around with names. At one point, I was pretty sure we were going to have a nameless baby because we couldn’t agree on ANYTHING. I actually called him, Nameless, a few times because I was that convinced. Nathan didn’t have a lot to offer, except for the name Jake, which of course is the name of my brother. I vetoed this immediately (no offense, Jake!), and Nathan essentially shot down all of my names before they ever left my mouth. Nathan seemed to like more traditional names and I like names that are unique, which left us in a really tough spot. At one point, we discussed the name Finn. We loved Finn, but didn’t like the one syllable name with the one syllable middle name we had chosen. I threw out Finley as an alternative, but we didn’t spend much time discussing it and I assumed it was because Nathan didn’t like it. Per usual. A few weeks later while conversing over Nameless, Nathan said, out of the blue, “I really like the name Finley and we can just call him Finn.” And there it was! Our baby boy had a name!


I love this name. I love that it’s unique without having to be a made-up name (although for a minute I did convince my brother we were naming him Renesmee, from the Twilight saga). For the record, Finley is an Irish male name that means Fair Warrior. I’m pretty sure we won’t be finding any key chains or coffee cups with his name on them, but oh well.

Nathan and I are currently enjoying guessing which traits he is going to inherit from each of us and imagining who Finn is going to be. We had a 3D ultrasound on March 9 and apparently, he has a lot of Nathan’s physical features. I hope this means that he’ll have my blue eyes and maybe my dimples. Nathan wants him to be athletic and I want him to love to read. I think he’s going to have my temper and Nathan’s stubbornness (let’s face it, with two red-headed parents he doesn’t really stand a chance here). I want him to be a mama’s boy, but idolize his daddy like I do.


No matter how we play it, I am beyond excited to meet our first child; our son, Finley Knight. Ready or not, he is certainly on his way.