3 Month Baby Bump

This is my 3 month bump. At first we didn't think there was one, but after comparing them to the other two, if nothing else...I'm thickening.

The last post was a picture of you from the inside, and here’s the most recent picture of you from the outside. Still not a lot of progress on the bump front. The only thing you see here is a burger bump, as your dad and I had just eaten some hamburgers about 15 minutes before this picture was taken.

Your dad is very, very eager for me to start showing. Yesterday we did some shopping and snooped around a maternity store just to see what there was. There was another couple who was shopping in there, and we overheard her tell the sales associate that she was 9 weeks along and already growing out of her clothes. Your dad looked at me accusatorily like I was intentionally concealing you from him.

I assume you’ll start to make more of an outward appearance at your 4 month photo shoot. Personally I’m not quite as eager to grow out of my clothes as your father apparently is, but it will be nice to feel more connected to you physically.

And now, a message from your dad:

Your mom is hogging you.  I haven’t had a chance to hang out with you…just you and me yet.  I’ve asked your mom to at least grow a baby bump so that I can know where you’re at, but she only grows burrito bumps and cheese bumps.  I just want you to know that I’m doing anything I can to keep you safe and grow you good.  I make your mom eat green smoothies every morning that I make for you (her).  I scramble you (her) an egg every morning.  I’ve forbidden her to drink energy drinks and I’ve been unwilling to allow her to engage in her recent ‘unpasteurized cheese-martinis’ cravings.  So far though, I’ve been really proud of you.  You’ve been really good to your mom.  I think that you may be pretty easy going and laid back, so you’re going to fit right in.  You’re pretty awesome.

 

Love,

Dad

Hi, this is your mom again. Your dad only makes green smoothies and eggs about three times a week.

12 Week Ultrasound

 This is you laying down, trying to suck your thumb. You are so talented...just try not to do that when you go to kindergarten.

 

 Not the greatest picture--but if you look closely enough you can see a little leg and foot in the top left corner. It's too early to tell whether you've inherited my cankles, but it doesn't look good so far.

 

This is you stretching out your legs as far as they can go.

On Monday we took you to your second ultrasound appointment. Medically, this was an appointment for us to check you out for certain birth defects, but mostly your dad and I just wanted a chance to see your little growing body again. You did great. You seemed to be eager to show us what you’ve been up to these last few weeks. Mostly you’ve done a lot of growing, and you’ve learned a couple of tricks. You are able to almost suck your thumb, and you can do barrel rolls almost on command. I imagine that you probably teach yourself these things during those long afternoons while we’re at work and I’m just sitting at my desk for hours. It probably gets pretty boring in there…

The only thing you aren’t able to do is follow instructions very well, as the ultrasound tech really needed you to turn over onto your back so she could check you out, but you were more interested in looking directly at the camera and checking us out.  

You did ultimately decide to cooperate, and so far everything looks great. It looks like you are perfectly capable of growing yourself up quite nicely.

It’s surreal for me to watch you toss and turn on the monitor—knowing that you’re doing that inside of me, but not being able to actually feel any of it. And I’m not sure what I like doing more…watching you on the screen, or watching your dad watch you on the screen. Dad loves these ultrasounds. It’s the only time he gets to see you and feel like he’s a part of you. Of course he thinks you are particularly advanced for your age. We are both pretty sure that the ultrasound tech thinks you are the cutest and smartest 12 week old fetus that she’s ever seen, but I think it would break some hospital rules for her to tell us that. But we know.

Unfortunately I don’t think that we will get to see you again until your 20 week appointment in late January. That’s when we’ll learn whether you are a he or a she, and most importantly, we’ll hopefully learn that you are still on track to join our family healthy and happy in late June 2013.

11 Weeks and a Talk About Heritage

Right now you are 11 weeks along, and are the size of a walnut, or a fig, depending on who you ask. You continue to be incredibly low maintenance which I am so grateful for. While morning sickness continues to be a non-issue, you are a little persnickety when it comes to food preferences. Last week all I wanted was a turkey sandwich, but this week the thought of meat is pretty unappealing. A couple of weeks ago peppers were off my list forever, but these last couple of weeks I’ve been inhaling salsa faster than I usually do—which is remarkable. The only consistency is that salty things remain high on my list of priorities, whereas sweet things like candy are less important (of course, as I type these very words I have a piece of candy in my mouth).

I am currently taking bets for determining when you’ll be born, what your gender is, etc. I will post them once the results are in for record keeping sake. But for now, your aunt Shay thinks you’re a girl. She directed us to a Chinese Gender Chart, which remarkably has been accurate for all four of your cousins so far. According to the chart, if we calculate it by your estimated conception date, you are a boy. But if we calculate it by your estimated due date, you are a girl. So if nothing else, at least we know you’ll either be a girl or a boy. Your Great Grandpa Allen thinks you are a boy, given that men out number women significantly on the Allen side of things.

Duchess Kate announced today that she is pregnant as well. I don’t know how far along she is, but regardless she’s kind of stolen my thunder. My guess is that you’ll be born within weeks of her royal heir. The reason I bring this up is because now would be a good time to let you know that you are technically an heir to the throne too—just an illegitimate one. You are a descendant of King George III, but unfortunately for you (and me) we descend from the wrong line. Over the course of your life you will learn that there are ample places in our genealogy where we were SO CLOSE to vast wealth and/or royalty, but just missed the boat by a nose hair. You will hear these stories a lot as you grow up, because I lament about them loudly all the time.

As you continuously double in size over the next 28 weeks or so, and your DNA strands continue to connect and your inherited traits slowly begin to unfold and reveal themselves, there are some things to think about regarding where all of this data is coming from.

One, is that you are extremely American. You have ancestors that came over from England on the Mayflower (you’ll learn what the Mayflower is later on), which means that our people were the first Europeans to settle this country hundreds and hundreds of years ago. One interesting note is that while your family is spread out from Coast-to-Coast and even across the world right now, many of your relatives settled Carver, Massachusetts--a town your Idahoan mother visits frequently for work.

Anyway, you’re last name is Irish. There is some confusion as to whether you actually have much in the way of Irish roots from your father’s side however, as the first McNally in our family was apparently adopted and people are unsure whether he actually came from Ireland, Scotland, or somewhere else. You have a lot of English in you, a lot of German, some Dutch, and even some Transylvanian. You have a strong Mormon lineage. In fact, some of your ancestors traveled for years across the plains in handcarts to flee from religious persecution back in the 1800’s. One of your more notable ancestors moved from Maine to Kansas in the wake of the Civil War, and allowed the Underground Railroad to run beneath his home for years.

If you are anything like me, you might find your ancestry to be less than thrilling one day. After all, our families are pretty much just an amalgamation of American, English and German with a few others mixed in. But this summer your dad and I had the opportunity to visit both England and Germany and for the first time I realized just how stunning it is to derive so heavily from these countries. One day I will take you there too so you can discover this for yourself.

When you’re in school and you start to learn about medieval Europe, keep in mind that those are your ancestors—the ones with the swords and the braids and the Renaissance fairs and the castles. And when you start to learn about the first Thanksgiving and the puritans, remember that those are your people too. When you learn about the Native Americans, keep in mind that you have Native American ancestry on both Grandpa Paul’s line and Nana’s line. Remember that in this country, your ancestors settled the East, the Mid-west, and eventually the West. You have ancestors that fought in the Revolution, the Civil War, the World Wars, the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, and probably even more. You have ancestors that were cowboys and sheep herders and farmers and artists and musicians and settlers and soldiers and scientists. And most significantly, always remember that one of your ancestors was a Count in Transylvania—which might make you part vampire. Time will only tell on that one. 

It is so wonderful to imagine all of these traits pouring into your walnut-sized self as we speak (the vampire thing makes me a little nervous, but hopefully if you are part vampire you’ll be one of the good ones, like Edward in Twilight). So often people think about what color their baby’s eyes will be or how much hair it will have or how tall it will grow. But to me it’s more fun to think about how all of these familial influences will impact your mind and your personality and your potential in life. You have a vast pool of resources to draw upon, so my only hope for you is that you’ll make your mark on our family tree one day, much like so many of your ancestors already have.

Welcome!

Welcome to the newest chapter of our lives...

Love, 

Challis & Josh

2 Months

 

This is your second official photograph. Apparently you're camera shy because you're nowhere to be found.

If I look like I just woke up from a nap...that's because I did.  

So far, you have been remarkably easy on your mother, all things considered. At first I thought this pregnancy would be rough, but now that we've both adjusted to each other I think we share space pretty well actually.

Right now you are the size of a raspberry and are currently in the process of growing hands and feet, eye lids, and nostrils. It must be exhausting to do all that growing, but I bet you're doing a good job.  

I haven't experienced much in the way of pregnancy symptoms in the last several weeks. I'm not fatigued at all--in fact, despite being pregnant and being on a caffeine hiatus--I have more energy than I usually have. I've actually been waking up at about 2:30 AM pretty regularly and can't fall back asleep until about 5:00 AM, but even without all that sleep I'm still relatively alert throughout the day.

I also haven't suffered much from morning sickness, which is too bad because I was counting on that to prevent weight gain in the first trimester. So much for that I guess. About once or twice a day for a period of about a half hour or so, I might get a small wave of queasiness--but nothing that is particularly bothersome. I don't have food cravings or food aversions per se, but I have noticed that I seem to have a color coded preference. Green and red things are less desirable to me than white and yellow things, which is unfortunate because green and red things tend to be healthy, whereas white and yellow things tend to be highly processed carbohydrates. We are choosing to view this early distinction of colors as evidence that you are probably a gifted artist or something.  

And much to your father's delight, I'm not an emotional wreck either. There hasn't been any major crying fits or bouts of hysteria like all the books said I would experience. I confess that last week I did experience an out-of-character welling up of emotion while watching a news clip about Hurricane Sandy. It was this piece about a Long Island family who had to evacuate their home without their kitten. Much to the family's delight, when they were allowed to return to their home two weeks later their kitten had made a safe place for itself atop their fridge and survived. For some reason that particular story made me cry, which is weird for me. Fortunately Dad was in the other room at the time so he didn't bear witness to this.

If I didn't know better, I wouldn't even think I was pregnant. I know I'm pregnant though because, despite a positive pregnancy test, I went and got a blood test confirmation anyway. This was about 2 weeks ago, and the nurse said I was "definitely pregnant" as my numbers were on the high end of where they usually are at 6 weeks. I am choosing to interpret this to mean that you are just really robust, and not that you are twins.

Please don't be twins.

So if these early months of pregnancy are any indication of things to come, I feel pretty good about things. Hopefully you'll be one of those kids who, for your whole life, I'll say things like "even from day one, he was such an easy baby. No wonder he never got in any trouble at school and went on to win a Nobel Peace Prize."

Oh yeah, I'll probably be referring to you as a "he" until we know for sure in the next few months. For whatever reason your dad and I have recently taken to referring to you in the masculine sense. It just feels wrong to refer to you as an "it." Plus, if I'm being perfectly honest, I think my whole life I always expected I would have a girl first, and so maybe by my calling you a "he" it will be less of a shock if you are in fact a "he" after all.  

Don't worry--I'll be thrilled with either a "he" or a "she," as long as it's just one "he" or "she."

1 Month

There are some things I swore I would never do. Taking a monthly “bump” photograph to document my pregnancy was one of them. Mostly because I’m well aware that all first time mothers are a little overly fascinated with the changes going on in their bodies and—much to their dismay—the rest of the world could care less. Also, I’m well aware that while we’re busy documenting virtually every mili-second of our pregnancy with the first baby, any subsequent children are lucky if they get their picture taken on their 1st birthday.

But, after all of that, I feel compelled to post my “1 Month” bump shot nonetheless for family journaling purposes (and for future reassurance that at one point in my life I had some modicum of a waistline). I'm the mom, so I get to do whatever I want. 

I do swear however to never take those cheesy black & white maternity pictures of my photo shopped belly with your father’s hands wrapped lovingly around my ever expanding gut. I also promise to never strip you naked and put you in a bucket for your newborn pictures.

So here’s your very first official photograph ever. Obviously there’s not much to see. Anything in the way of a bump depicted here is not attributable to you, but rather to the large helping of enchiladas that I consumed just minutes prior to this being taken. Next month I will try and remember to take the picture on an empty stomach.

Anyway, you are officially 4 weeks along today. Right now, you are the size of a poppy seed and doubling in size at an impressive rate. You seem intent on making yourself known, as I have had persistent cramping and bloating for the last couple of weeks. But thankfully there hasn’t been any morning sickness yet—knock on wood. I do seem to have an increased appetite for meat, salt, and spicy foods though…but I can’t tell whether this is due to my pregnancy, or just due to me being related to your Grandpa Paul. The tiredness has subsided for now, as have the headaches. Part of me wonders if all of that actually had more to do with me giving up caffeine than anything else. I apologize for any misunderstanding or undue blame I placed on you for those ailments.

We’ve taken to calling you Chicken Fry. For a while we referred to you as “Blasty” (short for blastocyst), but once you stopped being a blastocyst and turned into a full-blown embryo we needed another gender neutral moniker. So obviously Chicken Fry was the only clear choice since "Emby" (short for embryo) is pretty stupid.

Your dad laments a lot that he wishes he could be a bigger part of this process. He says he wishes we could just put you on a heat rock and feed you some crumbs or something, so that he could be a part of your development like I will be. This is probably why God decided women needed to be the ones who got pregnant and not men. That, and we have a higher pain threshold.

We still haven’t quite figured out when or how we’re going to tell your grandparents yet. The only thing I know for sure is that my parents will be surprised that it happened so soon, and Dad’s parents will be surprised that it took us so long (9 years).

Anyway, I am still trying to get used to this. It doesn’t feel real in the slightest. Sometimes I’m amazed at how much things haven’t changed at all. Our first doctor’s appointment is on November 19, 2012 (Grandpa Paul’s birthday!). At that appointment I assume they’ll confirm your existence in one form or another—if nothing else to prove to your dad that this whole thing isn’t just one big practical joke. And maybe to prove the same to me…

Welcome

Wow, that was quick. You were apparently very motivated to get here. 

 Welcome to my womb, Chicken Fry.

I was not expecting you so soon.  I guess I’m just so inundated with information about infertility and couples who struggle to conceive, that I didn’t expect to have so much success…on pretty much the first try. Nana was right though—apparently my fertile stock is not something to underestimate. Nor is your agility for that matter.

Last week I felt really run down—almost like I was about to get sick. By about last Thursday I started to feel some cramping, and took that as a sign that you would not likely be making an appearance this month. So on Friday we went out with some friends and I tried to just forget about it.

Not being the most patient of people though, I still decided to take a pregnancy test on Saturday morning, despite that it was too early to test. I wasn't surprised at all when it came out negative. I chose not to tell your dad because I knew it would make him sort of sad. Plus, somewhere in the very dark recesses of my mind, I kind of wondered…

On Sunday your dad ran a half-marathon in Newport, R.I. He did great and finished in less than two hours. When we got home that afternoon I took another pregnancy test, which still came out negative. Once again I chose not to tell your dad because it was still early, and there was also this part of me that knew my body felt different than how it normally would that time of the month. I still had cramping, but a different kind of cramping.

On Monday I took another pregnancy test at work. It was still early to test, but I had pretty much resolved to just test each day until I knew for sure. Low and behold, there was a very faint line. Faint as it was, it was still very definitely a line. So I ran to CVS and bought another pregnancy test (turns out taking repeated pregnancy tests is hard on the budget, so I thank you for not making me do that much more). Sure enough, the second test also revealed a very faint line. So I googled “faint line” as much as humanly possible, and every website I came across stated that a line is a line is a line—and that I was pregnant!

I put both urine soaked tests in my top drawer and checked them no less than 20 times in a single hour to verify that the line was still there.

Now, I've always imagined how I would tell your dad the good news. The only thing I've ever known for sure is that I would probably find out I was pregnant at work.  I used to fantasize about taking Dad out to dinner after work to some cozy little restaurant on Beacon Hill, and then handing him a Red Sox bib or something to that effect as a way of saying “surprise, you pollinated me.” But it was really naïve of me to think that I could ever sit on a secret this big for a whopping 10 hours before dinner.

I’m just impressed I didn’t spill the beans via text message.

I called your dad at work and asked if he’d be interested in getting some burritos with me downtown for lunch. Periodically we meet for lunch, so it wasn’t that out of the ordinary for him. We met at my work and walked down to Boloco Burrito in Downtown Crossing. We ordered our food and sat down to eat. I said “you’re probably wondering why I asked you here today.” Dad just kind of stared at me, probably thinking “because you love burritos?” Then I said “I’m pregnant.”

Dad was speechless. He laughed nervously, and then his eyes welled up with tears. And then he took a bite of his burrito.

The next thing he asked was how we could make sure you would be smart. I informed him that from everything I read, walnuts were our best bet. 

Then we discussed you and our life and our future and our finances for the next hour, before we had to go back to work.

It’s strange…after all of this build-up, I don’t feel like I how I thought I would feel. Truthfully I don’t really feel like you’re real, so I don’t know how to feel. Of course I’m excited and anxious and happy, but I’m also nervous, and apprehensive, and even a little bit in denial about the whole thing. Like I said…I didn’t think you’d come so soon.

My body however, seems to be abundantly aware that you have nestled your way in. I’m pretty tired, and have fallen asleep about an hour earlier each night since I found out.  In fact, I’m typing this during my dangerous time—after 2:00 PM, and thus all I want is to curl up beneath my desk and take a long nap. My chest is sore, my lower back aches, I still have some minor cramping, and a headache 24/7. This morning I woke up with a cold sore which, come to find out, is a symptom of early pregnancy resulting from a lowered immune system.  And we’re only at 4 weeks, so I’m worried I have a tough road to hoe for the next 8 months.

Please go easy on your mother from here on out.

We haven’t decided when to tell grandparents and aunts and uncles yet. We’ve decided to take another pregnancy test on Friday (tomorrow). I don’t really know why we need to do this, but I do think we’re looking for more ways to feel like this is happening—and maybe a darker line will be that clue. If it’s still positive then I’ll make a doctor’s appointment. Telling people this weekend seems too soon…so maybe the weekend after that. I hate that we will have to tell family over the phone. Hopefully we’ll at least be able to get a hold them on Face Time or Google Chat. I want to see their faces when we tell them.

Although I don’t know for sure when you are due to arrive, it looks like it will be right around June 25, 2013—just like we last discussed. The same still holds true from what I’ve already told you: try and avoid July if at all possible due to conflicting birthdays. But try not to come any earlier than June 25^th due to us possibly not being insured.

 Also, unfortunately your astrological sign will be Cancer--which you will have to spend a lifetime trying to overcome.  Your dad's a Virgo, which is no fun either, so you two can commiserate together about your lackluster constellations and ruling planets. Dont' worry though because I'm a Leo, which is the most amazing astrological sign in the universe. Thus I will more than make up for any perceived astrological weaknesses in our family. 

…Anyway…my whole life I always wondered what right now would feel like...this period of time when I have a happy marriage, a career, and finally a little bean growing inside of me that nobody else but my husband knows about. So far it just feels kind of, well, achy.