Now Everyone Knows about Baby (13 weeks 6 days)

We have told all of our family and friends. It is now posted on Facebook.com. So basically everyone know we are having a baby. We told most of our friends via email with the postcard attached. I told people at work verbally. Brian told most people via email with the attachment. We have realized that it was best to send them the postcard rather than standing next to them as the read it. Amazingly it took some people a while to get it and the pressure of staring at them doesn't help.

It was fun telling people. I was so surprised how happy and excited most people were when they found out. I was giving people hugs that I never thought I would. It is pretty cool.


Comments from Amy's Initial Posting on Facebook.com


Comments from Brian's Later Posting

Melissa is still the most excited. That still surprises us a little bit. She is in contact with us several times a week. She even bought me some natural wrist band thing for my nausea and vomiting. That's another update: The naseau has turned into vomiting now. It started a week ago. We went to Penn Station and I got a Philly Cheese Steak. Bad idea! I was vomiting that up later that night. Then Wednesday while I was brushing my teeth I had another episode of vomiting. AH! I still don’t feel that great. I am tried all the time and nauseous a lot. I now fear vomiting in public. Oh I almost forgot early this week I was having significant abdominal discomfort. Luckily that has gone away.

We have cleaned out baby’s room last weekend. It went well. We still have furniture in the room but we have not bought baby furniture yet so no sense moving yet. I don’t know what color I want the furniture to be in baby’s room. I also need to start looking a blinds because right now they are pink and that is not going to work (we don't plan to know the gender in advance, so we need the room to be neutral).

Brian’s friend Stuart at work was helpful today. He talked with Brian about child birthing classes and dualas. Brian emailed the lady today. We are waiting to hear back from her. I guess the child birthing classes are 12 weeks. That is a long time, so we need to figure out when they start.

Hope everything is okay with baby. I wish I felt better but the most important thing is baby is healthy.

Announcements to Family (12 weeks 4 days)

We told my parents on Saturday morning. They came over to help with the yard and before we started we gave them the picture. My dad got it right away but he did not say anything. It took my mom a while. In fact she handed the card back to me initially and said yeah that looks nice. Dad said I don’t think you get it Carrie. Then we even told her there are really three people in the picture. She hesitated and then said, no I only see two! The last clue was: Where is Brian's hand? Then she got it. Boy was she excited! She quickly screamed You're Pregnant! However she is not allowed to tell anyone and it is driving her crazy. She will have to wait about a week.

Next we told Brian’s mom and Mike on Sunday. They came over after spending the day with Mike’s family. It was convenient that they were in town and we were able to move up our doctor's appointment so we could notify them in person instead of by mail as we had originally thought we would. Carol got it right away. She was excited but did not really say much. On Monday, she took us to JoAnn fabrics to pick out material for baby’s blanket. That was a lot of fun. Baby’s room theme right now is monkeys. I think that is really cute idea.

On Monday night, we went to see Grandma and Gramps. Before dinner we showed them the card. Grandma got it right away. They were excited. They even started calling us “mom” and “dad”. That is scary! I am sure it is pretty cool for them to be great grandparents.

We started mailing our postcards to my brothers and Melissa. Melissa got hers today. She called both of us but we did not answer until we got off work. We wanted to talk to her together. Melissa surprised us the most. She is one of the most excited. We could not believe it. We did not how she was going to react. A lot has changed with our relationship since they have moved down to South Carolina. We knew it would but she was sincerely excited about baby. She was already talking about the baby shower and trying to come up around the birth. It was really great to hear her excitement. We are still a little sad because they live so far away but it is what it is and we will just see what happens.

We have not heard from anyone else yet. Brian and I told our bosses this week so at least they know too. Kathleen was supportive of me which was nice. My job is still really stressful and it is wearing me out but what can I do. Brian has been great helping out around the house.

We are still trying to clean our home room by room. We are organizing everything and throwing a lot of junk away. We now have the office and our bedroom done. The downstairs bedroom is basically done until we move the spare bedroom down there. We have to start cleaning out baby’s room so we can go buy furniture. I am excited about that.

Second Ultrasound (12 weeks)

This week has been really crazy for me at work. Work has been stressful which makes me stressed. No one there knows I am pregnant yet. That is about to change really soon.

We went to the doctor on Wednesday morning. Brian picked me up at work at 0830 and we went to the Garfield Heights office. Our appointment was for first trimester screening. First we had an ultrasound. It was exciting because it was the first time Brian saw a ultrasound. At the ultrasound, they needed to measure on the back of baby’s neck. Baby was laying on his/her stomach. The ultrasound tech did a few things trying to see if she could get the measurement, but baby was not moving. Baby was sleeping and did not want to be bothered. So the ultrasound tech had me cough. Oh my! This caused the baby to start moving all over the place. It was really funny! She got the measurements after the baby had flipped over. Brian did really good and asked for another ultrasound picture. We now can show that to our family once we tell them we are pregnant.



After the ultrasound (US) they took my blood. For the first trimester screening they measure my blood with the US results and retake my blood in 4 more weeks. Then we will have the results. Hopefully everything will be okay. They said so far everything looks good. We met Dr Farincaci at the doctor’s office. Dr Grossman was off. However we were there for an hour and half. We do not have to see the doctor now for four weeks.

Today is a big day. We are telling my parents we are pregnant. We have our postcard all printed out. We went and got them on Thursday. I am excited to tell them. My mom is not expecting this. We have her convinced we are still not planning a family anytime soon (after all, we have a Panama Canal trip planned). Only if she knew; we have been trying for a while. Now we are 12 weeks along! They are coming over to help us weed our yard. We are going to tell them as soon as they get here. That will give my mom time to calm down because she will not be allowed to tell anyone yet. She will not be happy about that however my work still does not know so the secret can't get out.

Then tonight we are going to Ted and Nellie’s wedding. It should be a fun night out.

Back from Vacation (11 weeks)

We are back from Bermuda. We had a nice relaxing vacation. While on the ship, our dinner table mates were also pregnant. They were about 2 weeks behind us. It was nice to talk to them about our experiences and their experiences. We told them we are pregnant because we knew we would never see them again (remember our families still do not know). It was really nice to talk to someone else about this experience. We have also complained in the past about table assignments on cruise ships. We have been seated with people that are 2 generations apart from us or that don't even speak the same language. It was nice to get lucky this time and be seated with someone who is basically in the same situation as we are.

We went to the doctor again today. Originally our appointment was for July 19 but I continue to have on and off spotting and I was getting nervous so I had the appt changed. I was still under the impression that it would be my second prenatal visit but they did not share that expectation. The office people at the desk are not the best. So when we went to see the nurse, she asked why we were there and I explained. She said it could not be the second prenatal visit because the technicians needed for the ultrasound were not there. After a long discussion we decided to leave. Half way home Dr Grossman called me. We ended up driving back and we saw him which was good. We got a lot of our questions answered about first trimester screening tests. We have decided to have the first trimester screening done to test for downs, spinal bifida, and Trisomy 18. They will take blood work and ultrasound which is now scheduled for Wednesday. It will be nice to have peace of mind.

At the doctors office today, we got to hear baby’s heart beat. It was very exciting! I am 11 weeks today! Dr Grossman did an exam and everything seems to be looking good. We are planning to go to another appointment on Wednesday for more tests then we will start telling people this weekend! Oh people are going to be excited. I cannot wait to go print our postcards to send it to our family.

I am starting to feel better. Less nausea and not as tired as I was for a while. I think I am nauseous only probably 20% of the time now. There for a while it was more like 80% of the time. Right now though I always seem to be hungry. I usually have a lot of fruits and vegetables to snack on. I still have not gained any weight though which I am okay with.