In the Beginning

We knew we wanted children. We knew we wanted to wait to have them. We ASSUMED we'd have no problem. I mean, what are the chances that WE would have a problem having a baby?! Our lives were right on track...we had the house, the cars, the jobs, the dog...it just seemed natural that a baby would be next.

C. and I were married in July of 2005. We were madly in-love, and still are. He's calm and mellow, I'm high-strung and the textbook definition of a Type A personality. He likes to go with the flow, I like to plan life down to the very last detail. (Don't tell me I can't do something, or I'll be driven to prove you wrong!) Early on in our relationship, we talked casually about baby names and what our baby would look like. Would they get my long torso and his long legs and be nearly 7 feet tall? Would they inherit our messed-up ankles or my tendency to be accident prone?

In August of 2007, I ditched my BC pills, but it wasn't until November that we seriously started talking about adding a member to the family. We already had one "big baby"...Duke, our 120 pounds german shepard/lab mix, but it still felt like something was missing. It also didn't help that we purchased a home in 2006 with a room already decorated like a nursery, or that my mom purchased us a changing table before C. and I had even mentioned that we were thinking about starting a family. Yikes! Me, being the planner that I am, wanted to wait for a few months so my maternity leave would fall over the summer months. I'm also a very warm-blooded person, and couldn't imagine being pregnant when the weather was hot. (How trivial and naive, right?!) So in February of this year, we decided to start "trying" in May or June, but in the meantime, we weren't actively preventing pregnancy.

So I guess it shouldn't have been a shock to us when my period was late in March. Really?! After one month of not really "trying," we were pregnant?! All I could think of was the fact that I'd be due in December...the month when C. can't take any vacation time because of the nature of his job and the fact that I would have a baby in the middle of a frigid Minnesota winter...but most importantly...this wasn't what I had planned!

Despite the "obvious" protest on timing from me, I fell right into the role of being pregnant. I also failed to mention that my younger sister, who already has a 2 year-old son, announced that she was pregnant again and expecting in November. Fun! We'd be pregnant together! I subscribed to all kinds of email updates about the baby. I bought flowing tops and complained that I'd be gaining back the 20 pounds I had recently lost. I subscribed to Fit Pregnancy magazine and bought pre-natal yoga and exercise videos. My mom bought C. and I baby books, CD's and a picture frame for the first ultrasound pictures. C. even came home with pacifiers for the baby one day! It was all so new and wonderful.

As many other bloggers have mentioned, we couldn't wait to tell family and close friends that we were expecting. C. told absolutely everyone at work and all of his buddies. He was beyond excited to be a daddy. I told only my two closest co-workers.

My first appointment with my doctor was pretty uneventful. They did the questionnaire about our family history and took what seemed like 20 vials of blood. My doctor told me that it was OK to keep drinking my morning cup of coffee (to think that was my biggest concern about the pregnancy!) and exercise moderately. My due date was set at December 16, 2008. She lined me up with an appointment to see her in four weeks, told me we'd listen to the heartbeat at that appointment, and sent me on my way. The date was April 18th, 2008 and I was 6 weeks pregnant.