All Is Well

This is our first sonogram, performed this morning. The technician was able to find the baby very quickly with no problems. I guess it's where it's supposed to be! She pointed it out to us, showed us its heart beating, then turned on the sound so we could hear it. Its pulse was 130 beats a minute, which she said was right on.

They drew Kim's blood and took a urine sample to run all the other tests, but Dr Hooi said everything looked great for now. We'll go back once a month until the last month, at which point we'll start going every week.

Kim didn't tell me this yet, but I think I did very well for my first OBGYN appointment. I didn't touch or break anything, and I only made one corny joke (which the Dr. laughed at).

Everyone Knows

The word is now free to spread however words like this spread. After a lot of deliberating, we decided this weekend to proceed with telling the public.

The morning sickness and nausea has hit Kim pretty badly this last week or so. We decided it might be obvious with her feeling bad and being a little crabby at times, so we'd hit when we still had the element of surprise. We've been calling and e-mailing friends the last few days, and letting folks know about this blog. Sunday night, I announced it to Mosaic.

It's a lot of fun to not have to hide it anymore. We can talk freely now, and so can you. Everyone seems to be happy and excited for us. Advice, baby books, and even Preggie Pops are now starting to roll in.

Random Baby Fact #2

Losing my Mind...Literally

Sam read that pregnant women lose approximately 3-5% of their brain capacity.

Last night, someone asked us how long we've been married. I told them that it will be 3 years in February (when in reality, it will be 2 years in January).

I drove to church last night and could not remember how to put the car in park.

Seriously...this baby stuff is nuts.

Random Baby Fact #1

From time to time, we'll post random baby facts we have learned from our growing library of baby resources (currently 4 books and a documentary from the Learning Channel).

#1 - If the baby continued to grow at the rate is has been these first few weeks, it would be born bigger than the sun.

After hearing that, Kim said she's very glad it's going to slow down.

The Family Knows

Ok, we think just about everyone in both of our families knows now.

As planned, we drove to my hometown of Benton on Friday afternoon and walked in totally unexpected around 6:30 pm. My stepmother was cooking dinner, and turned around shocked to see us both. In hindsight, there were some cons to us trying the surprise thing - like some people being so surprised to see us that they couldn't process the news until later. My father was sitting in the living room with his foot up from his recent foot surgery. When they asked what we were doing, I told them we thought they'd want to hear it face to face that they were going to be grandparents. My father started crying immediately and called me over for a hug, my stepmom Carol hugged us as well and wanted to know details right away. Later, after things had calmed down, we walked over to my grandparents (my dad's parents) and did it again. They were surprised and happy for us as well, and my grandfather began wondering almost immediately what type of wood he should build the baby's first dresser out of.

Then came phone calls to my brother and his fiancee, my sister and her husband. After that were the calls to Kim's mom and my mom to let them know how the conversations all went. I also told my mom there was no point in her keeping the news from all of my Bastrop family until Christmas. So now they all know and are excited too. The next morning, we drove over to see more grandparents (Carol's parents) who were also surprised and very happy for us. Mamaw Margie said that it'd been too long since there were any babies around the family. On the way back to my parent's house, Kim called her Grandmother while Kim's mom was telling all of her sisters they'd be great aunts.

We're back in Austin now, and I just made the last call I can think of at this moment to family. David and LuAnn Weynand are my sister-in-law's parents. We love them, but don't know what to call them, so we came up with the term "Other-laws." They were excited, but were shopping in FAO Schwartz - which LuAnn said was a bad place to hear that family members are expecting.

So for now, I think everyone is busy trying to figure out what they want to be called. This baby will have 6 grandparents, 7 great-grandparents, 5 aunts, 3 uncles, and tons more extended family. So we're looking forward to some real creative names. My dad has already decided that he wants his to be "Favorite."

"What's This About Ya'll Having A Baby?"

Only hours after writing that last post about telling people, the cat is about 90% out of the bag now with family.

By the end of the afternoon yesterday, we had a great plan together for telling our family later this week. We were going to tell Don & Emily (the other pastor and his wife) first last night, so that I could ask for this weekend off to go to Louisiana. I had already checked with both of my parents to make sure everyone would be around this weekend (without letting them know we were coming). Our plan was to tell Kim's brother and our sister-in-law Wednesday night, then Kim's parents on Thursday night. Then we'd take off Friday to drive to my mother's in Bastrop, LA and surprise that side of the family on Friday night (Saturday and Sunday weren't options because the entire town will be New Orleans watching Bastrop in the state football championship). Saturday morning we'd get up and go surprise my Dad and the rest of my Benton family, then take our time getting back to Austin on Sunday. Pretty good plan, huh? Everyone gets a surprise visit and gets to hear the news face to face.

Well, about 10 minutes after talking to my mom and while driving over to Don & Emily's to begin this sequence of events, my mom called me back on my cell phone. "Hey, it's mom again. Right after getting off the phone with you I decided to check your blog, and what's this about ya'll having a baby?" I was shocked, I had no idea what part of my other personal blog she was talking about. I thought I had been so careful keeping this blog secret. I stammered and stuttured and finally asked, "What?" She proceeded to tell me that she still checks my normal blog every few days (even though I haven't posted to it in over a month), and that my profile now finished by saying "Oh yeah, and we're having a baby." I pride myself on being quick on my feet and even conniving at times, but I had nothing. I couldn't think of any way to cover it, so I said "We didn't want you to find out this way, we were coming this weekend to tell you that Kim is pregnant." First came the squeel, then "Oh my gosh, I am so excited." Several more minutes were spent with her and her congratulations. And as we talked, I turned the car around to come home and figure out why the internet was betraying us.

When we created this blog, we password protected it and made sure Kim and I were the only ones who could see it until we wanted all of you to. But I built it through Blogger/Blogspot, just like mine and Kim's personal blogs. And when I made a profile bio on this baby blog, it imported it to my other blog too. So I deleted that one line about having a baby from the profile immediately. The good news was that so far my mom is the only family member that knew about my blog. She was here the weekend I created it, but I wasn't going to tell other family and friends until I had more content up on it. The bad news was our plan was at least partly ruined, and we got paranoid that other people would find out soon too. So we went on what can only be described as an Austin "telling spree." We went and told Don & Emily. Then we went and told Kim's parents. Then we went and told Clayton & Megan. Somewhere in there Kim told her best friend Dey. Everyone has been surprised, but seemed happy and excited for us.

But I just feel terrible that my mom found out like she did, and I feel really bad about most of my family not knowing yet when so much of Kim's family and our friends here do. I'm sad my dad won't find out for 4 more days, but I'm glad we'll get to tell him face to face. Our plan now is to go to Benton Friday night and surprise everyone, then come back to Austin Saturday or Sunday in time for church. My mom said there's no point in making the longer trip to Bastrop now that she knows, and that she'll keep the secret from the rest of my extended family there until we get there for Christmas.

But as the poet said, "The best laid plans of mice and men..."

Telling People

We're not sure when we should start telling our families about all of this. This blog is still locked to the public at the time of my writing, so one day soon you'll all read what my thoughts were today on Monday, December 4th. For me, there are 3 things at play:

1. First, none of our family knows we were trying or even close to trying. We're hoping and thinking that everyone will respond favorably at first. After all, we'll be having the first grandchild on both sides, and the first great-grandchild on my side. We're the oldest childless couple in both families. Both of us have our education out of the way, and have full-time salaried jobs. All that makes us think everyone will be happy and think we're ready (or at least closest to ready in our families). BUT, we still have a lot of debt. We don't own a home yet. I am still raising support for my job at Mosaic. And Kim will probably want to take her full maternity leave and then quit her job next year. She'll find a massage job eventually we hope, but for a while money will be tight. And the progress we've made on paying down our debt will halt completely when the baby comes.

2. Secondly, we'd want to tell our families personally. For me that's a little tougher since my family is 6 hours and 8 hours away, respectively. Advent just began, and I'll be pretty busy at the church with special services and work at the new space until after Christmas (when we were already planning on going to Louisiana).

3. Finally, this early in a pregnancy (especially a first one), there's always the possibility of losing the baby. We know a lot of people chose not to reveal they are expecting until later (even after the first trimester) to make sure the baby is ok. We'd hate for our family and friends to get real excited for us and then have to go through all the pain and awkwardness of a miscarriage.

The 3rd concern isn't really holding us back. We're such open people, and experienced with suffering that we wouldn't want to hide from our family or our church a miscarriage. Even if Kim were to lose the baby tomorrow (only 4 or 5 weeks in), we'd probably tell people and begin a period of grief and suffering. Plus, the earlier we tell people, the earlier we began receiving their prayers, well-wishes, and even hospitality and gifts.

The first concern about the timing or our finances also doesn't matter much to me personally. I want my family and Kim's to respect us and support/approve our decisions whenever possible. But, we're adults now who will sometimes do things they don't like or agree with (especially in regard to child rearing, I imagine). I know some of our decisions have been met with questions at first from both sides, like dropping out of seminary to move to Austin, or me having to raise support at Mosaic. But for the most part, things have gone well, and I believe we are trusted and supported by all of our family. I think the belief that all of our family members have about the sanctity of life, and children as a gift will play into it too. After all, agree with us or not, Kim's pregnant and there's nothing anyone can or will do about that now. But, I do want to work some on our money and budget, and to develop a plan for how we'll live the next year or two before we tell our families.

The distance/travel component is tricky. We have thought the last few days that we would just wait and get the first OBGYN visit under our belt. Then when Kim is around 7-8 weeks, we could tell her family here on Christmas Day. Then we'd travel to Louisiana and tell everyone there the day or two after Christmas. But we're going nuts not being able to tell anyone, and thinking about having to wait 3 more weeks. We're going to talk more about it tonight, but we might try to tell everyone this week. I was supposed to be off this Sunday night from Mosaic to speak at another church in town, but that fell through this morning. I could certainly be used at Mosaic then, but I am thinking about asking Don if I could take it off anyway and go to Louisiana this weekend. Then we could tell Kim's family here on Thursday or Friday night, and mine on Saturday and Sunday. It's probably not real smart financially to spend the money on gas just 2 and a half weeks before we do it again. But we've got 8 more months to save and be responsible.

August 12th

Kim called her OBGYN first thing this morning to set up an appointment. They asked why she needed to come in and she told them, "I think I am pregnant." The nurse then asked if Kim had taken a home pregnancy test yet. Kim told her she had taken two, both of which were positive. "Ok, well that's what we go by. We'll want to see you when you are at 7-8 weeks for the first sonogram." Kim proceeded to work out the details of where she was and then made the appointment, it'll be in two and a half weeks.

Then she got to work and used some pregnancy site's calculator to figure out that if all goes well, our first child should be showing up around August 12th of next year. So, now we're starting to freak out a little.

Is this really happening?

I guess it’ll take a while to sink in, but I still don’t feel like this is really happening. We’re having a baby. I’m pregnant! We decided to start trying in November…and it worked. Many couples try for so long and I am so grateful that it was easy for us.

Sam and I have in us this need to justify to our family and friends, why we would desire to bring a child into our family when we don’t own a house and when money is still tight. Whether or not you agree with us, we’d like to give you a quick rundown of our process.

Speaking honestly, the final decision to have a baby was easy. We've talked about it, made plans for it, and prayed about it for two years now. But when it came down to it, we want and believe we are ready for children (well, as ready as anyone ever is). Since we started dating, we’ve talked about wanting children—biological and adopted.

We believe that through our work and God’s provision, we’ll be fine financially. We won’t have the biggest house and the finest toys, but we’ll be together and happy. If we were to wait until we had all of our debt paid off, it would be at least 6 years and that is just longer than we want to wait.

We could wait and pay off debt and save for a house, but we realized that there’s nothing wrong with staying in our apartment. It’s a nice apartment…big, first floor, nice balcony…we’re happy there. Having a child means that our debt will be paid off over a longer period of time, but we think it’s worth it. We don’t want to live in slavery—unable to do the things we really want to do because we have debt. We’re going to live…but we will live smartly.

So please don’t worry about us. Please be happy for us, because we are so happy. It’s a dream come true for both of us and I am so blessed to be doing this with the love of my life. I don’t know many other men that would immediately start a blog to write about the process of pregnancy and child-rearing and who would volunteer to take a photo of my belly every night. He didn’t freak out when I told him and he is so excited and supportive. He’s so stable when I’m not and I thank God for him.

I love you, Pooks, and I couldn’t be more excited to do this with you.

Here we go!

"There are two lines there!"

My alarm was set for 9:15. I planned on sleeping in until then. Then I would wake up and get ready for our monthly Leadership Team meeting at 10:30. I remember hearing Kim get up to go to the bathroom around 8:15. I turned over and tried to get back to sleep for the last hour, but I wouldn't get to. She climbed back in bed and told me she had just "peed on the stick" again. I hadn't realized yet that it was Sunday morning, when we had said she would take the test again.

We bought the box of three First Response Pregnancy tests earlier in the week, thinking we had waited long enough. But when Kim took the test earlier in the week, it was negative. We made ourselves wait until this morning to try again. But we had both decided that Kim wasn't pregnant yet. We talked about that as we waited for the 5 minutes in bed this morning. Kim said that she was starting to feel "crampy" and knew her period was just around the corner. I told her that I thought she had been moody the last few days, and that I had already decided she probably wasn't pregnant. After all, we both said, most couples don't conceive on their very first try. So, we had ourselves completely convinced that the test sitting in the bathroom would be negative again. "We'll just try again next month, honey, and as long as it takes after that" I said. I didn't even get out of bed to walk in there with Kim, like I had earlier in the week.

So she peeked her head in, then turned around to me and said "There are two lines there." I didn't think it was possible, so I asked "You're not kidding with me, are you?" She said she wasn't and that I should come look myself. I jumped out of bed and ran in to find what she said was there, 2 clear pink lines. After waiting all day, she just took the last one to make sure. 2 lines again, so it looks like she is definitely pregnant.

We're not scared, at least not yet. There'll be time in the next few days for us to explain why we started trying (we know it won't make sense to many). There'll be plenty of blogs and pictures about dr's appointments and sonograms, showers and baby furniture. And I imagine we'll write plenty about our fears and our questions.

But tonight, we're just very very happy.