Telling the Kings

Christmas in Peru!

We had plans to travel to Peru with my family for x-mas since the summer, when Alissa (my sister) found out she would be spending the year there as a Young Adult Volunteer (YAV). I was very excited to go to Peru and to see Alissa, but also a little nervous about traveling again with morning sickness. Jordan was smart enough to mention these concerns to my OB/GYN who prescribed some nausea medication, just in case. Just having it in my possession was enough to ease my mind.
We left for Peru on December 22nd, and while the trek to get there was long, the nausea wasn't nearly as bad as I had thought it might be. I was armed with plenty of snacks and the medicine just in case.
We spent all day on December 23rd in Lima, Peru before catching a plane early the next morning to Arequipa, outside of Huanta, where we would met Alissa. The day in Lima may have been the hardest part of the trip because we were determined to keep the news secret until time to open gifts for x-mas.
We walked around Lima and ate and shopped some. We took some pictures. I love the one of me curled up in the sun because I think it's great to imagine the little embryo growing away inside. I was impressed that I fit in that space, but it's even greater that there were two people in there!
Another great picture I only recently saw that I find hilarious! I thought I had done a better job of hiding my general nausea and exhaustion than that!
We arrived in Huanta early on Christmas Eve. Alissa's host family had made plans for us to see Huanta, so we spent most of the morning and early afternoon traveling around Huanta with them. The tradition in Peru is for gift giving to happen on Christmas Eve. Once Jordan and I heard this, we were both so excited to finally be able to tell my family. We did still have to bide our time until there was a moment to spend with just the family. This finally came around in the late afternoon.
I had crocheted slippers for everyone (except my dad because they seemed too girly). We had everyone open the slippers at the same time. Then, there was an extra gift for my mom (baby slippers) and my dad got to open what we had brought for him (a kid's tool set). We were lucky to be able to video the moment. When you watch it, pay particular note to how no one really knows what's going on at first. My mom subversively hid the baby slippers back in their packaging so that no one else could see. They figured it out eventually, though it took some longer than others :)

My parents were already pretty sure that I was pregnant, come to find out. While I thought that I had always been a little motion sick in childhood (and therefore could get away with claiming motion sickness in Peru), my mother's memory was that I had never really been that motion sick. She said that she had been trying to figure out why I had motion sickness all of a sudden, and that really gave it away. My dad said he was sure when I had to make a pit stop and pee in the bushes while we were out around Huanta earlier that day. I guess I wasn't as sneaky as I thought!
While telling my family was definitely the highlight of the trip for me, the rest of it was pretty great too. I did end up using a fair amount of the nausea medication. I probably could have made it through without, but I wouldn't have been up for a lot of the hiking and tourism that we had planned. I would say the other main highlight was hiking down to the bottom of Colca Canyon (a day's hike). Best parts: 1) sliding on the dry dusty pathway so suddenly that I ended up on my butt! 2) sleeping in a dinky cabin. I can't even describe the "mattresses" 3) Arriving at the "oasis". Why didn't they warn us about the devil mosquitoes?!!! 4) riding out of the canyon on a donkey (and man am I glad we had a donkey!)

The First Sonogram

We called the doctor the very day after finding out we were pregnant and got scheduled for a routine sonogram to verify and date the pregnancy. Our sonogram wasn't scheduled until December 1oth.
I was looking forward to the sonogram for all of the normal reasons, but mostly I was excited to do something that was going to finally make it feel "real". In the back of my mind I was also a little worried that I was having a hysterical pregnancy (we were watching Glee at the time, and Will's wife had just been diagnosed with one)
We went to the OB's office and I was so excited to finally be there with my husband. No kidding I used to imagine the day when we would be in the office together expecting our first child, and this was it! They brought us into the sono room (in the basement of the office) and had me lay back on the exam table. Jordan was sitting next to me, but it was awkward to hold hands or anything, so we were just next to one another. She turned on the monitor, and lo and behold, there was actually a baby in there! Well, an embryo to be technical, but still some form of life that had the potential to be a baby. I was NOT having a hysterical pregnancy.
It was pretty amazing to see our little peanut bouncing around on that screen. There really was so much movement. Jordan and I were both almost moved to tears. Only almost though. I think we were maybe too nervous to get all the way there. All she had at that point was a butt and a head with a blob in the middle (a brain I think).
The sonogram put our due date at July 17th. This was different than the due date calculated by LMP (July 24th). The moral of the story was, our baby was going to be born on my birthday! I guess we'll see, but it seems kind of inevitable that I will lose my birthday season to this child. *sigh*

Pregnant in New York

You might think this is mostly an excuse to talk about being in New York, but while I am going to use it as an opportunity to show some pics from the trip, we really couldn't think of much other than the pregnancy while we were there.

We went to New York with Jordan's family and Mickey to see Michael and Carrie. Mickey, Jordan and I stayed with Michael and Carrie in their apartment on Staten Island. We were super excited to see them and to have time to hang out with them!

We had decided not to get any family members excited yet, so we had no plans to discuss the pregnancy while we were in New York. Keeping a secret is really hard though, so in the end, we only managed to keep our lips sealed until Jordan's family left.

We did a lot of fun stuff in New York, even if I couldn't stop thinking about the pregnancy for most of it (in my defense, it's really hard to stop thinking about it when you feel sick all the time!). We went to the MOMA and the Thanksgiving day parade and we saw some shows. The most fun was Thanksgiving day with everyone at Michael and Carrie's apartment. The food was delicious and the company was great.

My morning sickness really got going around the time we arrived in New York. I had heard traveling made it worse, but it turned out that was just the way morning sickness was. It didn't get any better once we got home :( Being nauseated during our trip was no fun! Riding the ferry to and from Manhattan every day was terrible! Thank goodness I never threw up, that would have "spilt the beans", so to speak, to Jordan's parents. I learned that frequent snacking is key, and would have Jordan get the Frosted Cheerios out of Michael and Carrie's pantry every morning for me to snack on before getting out of bed.

When Jordan's family left to go back to Dallas, we decided it was safe to tell Michael, Carrie, and Mickey the big news. We hadn't really planned on this, so there was no cute method that we came up with to tell them. We had the picture of the pregnancy test on our camera, so we ended up showing them that. It was easier than saying it, I guess. They were appropriately excited, and then I didn't have to keep my nausea secret anymore!

Michael, Carrie, and Mickey kept the secret beautifully until we were ready to tell everyone. Michael and Carrie were the first to buy our baby a gift (some darling receiving blankets), which they left for us when they stayed at our house over x-mas.

Keeping the Secret

Why do people keep such exciting news secret?

I know why we did. Unfortunately I know all too well all of the things that can go wrong, especially in the beginning of a pregnancy. We didn't want to get everyone excited and then have to tell them something had gone wrong. More truthfully, we didn't want to get ourselves all excited and then if something did go wrong, have to share that with everyone too. So, we decided to keep it a secret.

Easier said than done!

I think we knew three days before we mutually decided that we had to tell someone! We agreed that we could both pick one person to share the news with. That way, if something did go wrong, we would only have to both break it to one person.

I was on my gmail and saw my good friend Audrey online. Audrey lived in Austin, 4 hours from Dallas, and while I am quite fond of her, we do not see each other much. I decided this was perfect! If something happened, I could tell her via chat or phone and I wouldn't have to see her in person soon afterward.

11:29 AM me: Thought you would like to know (but it's super secret insider info only)

On Sunday I found out I am pregnant

Audrey: intriguing!

AAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

me: !!!

Audrey: OH MY GOODNESS!!!!

me: :-D

Audrey: I am so happy for you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

me: Thanks

Audrey: DONNICE!

me: it is kind of surreal

Audrey: BABY!

11:30 AM me: I know

it is the size of between a lentil and a kernel of corn right now!

Audrey: awwww

me: and it mostly looks like an alien

Audrey: a little lentil in your belly!

me: LOL

Audrey: you got to see the pictures already?

me: no, just googling from how far along I am

11:31 AM in general, they look like aliens

I just started week 6 today

Audrey: haha

week 6!

what a great week!

Jordan's perspective:

I did not really understand why it was so important to keep our news secret. Donnice may have had an increased perception of our risk because of her job, but I'm the type of person who never really believes anything could go wrong. I was camping with my friend Richard when we first started to suspect, and I was dying to tell him before we'd even confirmed it.

Since I could only tell one person, though, I decided to share our news with my friend and coworker, Nina. She had become a mother during the time that I knew her, and she told me all the time how much I would love being a dad. If I only got to tell one person, I wanted to make sure it was someone who would be very happy for me. And, since I knew her from work, she didn't really have much connection to the other circles of friends for whom it was still a secret. Nina was very excited for us both, and less than two months after I shared my news with her, she had her own news to share with me: her second is now on the way!

Finding Out

And then...we were pregnant!

I was at a genetic counseling conference in Atlanta when I was late.
The funny thing about not being on birth control, is that you can't count on everything to work like a clock. I was still getting used to that. There had been many "false alarms" when I was a day or two late and had been CONVINCED that I was pregnant. We went through a lot of pregnancy tests those first few months!
Because I was in Atlanta, without dear Jordan, I was forbidden from buying a pregnancy test to see if my suspicions were correct. For the 4 days of the conference I was in agony wondering "am I?" "no, can't be!" At least I know Jordan was suffering similarly. He went to a weekend camping trip with some friends and I forbade him from mentioning my suspicions. As I said it, "no one wants to know that my period is late!"
I got home from Atlanta on a Sunday. Jordan picked me up at the airport, and we raced home so I could pee on that stick! I was four or five days late by then, so I was pretty much convinced. Jordan was trying not to get his hopes up.
It's amazing how you can go from hoping to start a family one day, to expecting your first child, all in the span of a minute! More amazing is how nothing really changes. One minute, you thought you were pregnant, and the next, you knew it. But I felt completely the same. It seems like knowing you're pregnant all of a sudden should awaken some "maternal" feeling. Absolutely nothing was different about how I felt. I was excited, but when something so big happens so fast, and you feel completely the same, it's hard to believe anything is really different.
Jordan didn't believe it I think for days. In the first few minutes he was completely shocked. He really wanted me to take another test. We didn't have another test, so I just kept telling him "you don't get false positives on these things!" He came around eventually.
And then, the most agonizing part...keeping it a secret!!!