To Know or Not To Know...

...that has been the question.

I haven't been diligent about writing through this pregnancy, but we decided a while ago that we weren't going to find out the gender of this baby.

We didn't want to find out with Avonlea--but due to an over-eager nurse, we were told early. So, we decided that with this one, we would try again.

And it has been fun not knowing. To be able to anticipate and wonder, to thrill in the unknown. I wasn't worried about the "things" aspect. We registered for mostly gender-neutral gifts with Avonlea, and I wasn't worried about clothes, because some of our really great friends have had boys, and so I knew we would have clothes. Plus--who cares if you dress a newborn in a wrong-color onesie? You have to tell strangers what it is anyway!

There *has* been a problem with not knowing, though, and it relates to this post I wrote in December. I have found it hard to connect with this baby. Not that gender has a huge effect on that, but I think it definitely would help me to be able to connect. To get ready, to get closet space filled up, to settle on a name, to start calling the baby by something other than "Biscuit".

I mentioned this disconnect several times to Nick, and he asked if finding out the gender would be helpful for me. After thinking about it, I decided that yes, it would.

Fun fact: Did you know that we have had the ultrasound result on our refrigerator since I was 19 weeks pregnant?

And NO we didn't peek once! We decided at my 19-week ultrasound to have them put the results into an envelope--at that point, I was gung-ho about NOT looking, and Nick was 50/50 about it. We put it on the fridge, and if we decided we wanted to look, then we could.

People couldn't BELIEVE we hadn't looked at it when we told them it was on the fridge! My neighbor, Sunni, actually said she was going to come and look when we weren't there, because she wanted to know so badly! It just wasn't a temptation. With Avonlea, I found out what we were having when Nick was at work, and I didn't want to find out again without him; and when he was home, we didn't really talk about it. It honestly didn't come up.

At our 19-week appointment, the doctor saw that I had a low-lying placenta, so we had to come back at 26 weeks for another ultrasound to check on it. At the 26-week appointment, he saw that the placenta had moved up to where it should be (yay), and then checked over the rest of the baby. He moved it to the "find out" area, and then pulled the wand away--but had it there long enough that both of us thought we had seen something definitive!

Of course, a couple of hours later, I was able to talk myself out of what I had thought I had seen. :)

But anyways, because of the disconnect, we decided that we would look on Christmas Day.

Want to know what we're having?

Well, you'll just have to wait until February 3rd to find out!  'Cause we're not telling!  Feel free to leave your guesses in the comments!

(For the record, one of us guessed correctly, and one of us was surprised.)

8 Week Update

(Originally written on June 27, 2014)

So, I have had a few weeks to process the news of our pregnancy. How do I feel about it now?

Well, still shocked, actually. I'm not sure if I'll ever "get over" the news. It really was so completely unexpected. It took us 3.5 years to get pregnant with Avonlea--I never imagined we wouldn't have trouble again.  I am a little happier now--still not completely so, but not angry anymore, at least.

We had our 8-week appointment and ultrasound on Monday--steady little 140 bpm. Because of this, and the measurement (around 7mm), the doctor thinks I might be a week off of my calculations--which, wouldn't be surprising, since I had NO idea when I ovulated/had my period last. But, because the kid is still SO small, they aren't entirely sure (it's really easy to be off a millimeter doing an ultrasound). We'll wait another month, do another ultrasound, and get a better measurement.

So far, I've started to have nausea again (oh, yay), which only seems to be cured by constant eating of Mexican food.  I've also had shortness of breath (which I forgot to ask the doctor about...oops).

As it is, here we are at our appointment with....our little Biscuit!

Right now, we're looking at a February 1st due date, but I'll update that if it changes at all.

A Visit to the Doctor

I find it to be incredibly rude when you arrive early or on time to an appointment at the doctor, and you still end up spending over an hour in the office--especially when your time with the doctor is about 3 minutes long. It really makes me crazy.

I had my appointment today--39 weeks, 5 days. My appointment was at 2:45. At 3:35 we got in to the room (Ashley went with me). At 3:55 the doctor came in, and at 4:00 he was done. When he was leaving, he said that I needed to go to a perinatologist to get an ultrasound to check for my size and dates.  By 4:15 I was finally getting my appointment set up for next week.

While we were in the waiting room, I made a 4:30 appointment to take Ashley with me on the Warner Brothers Studio Tour. It's one of the best tours in Los Angeles--one I have wanted to go on since moving here. Nick went with his office mates at Christmas, but I haven't been able to go! We had plans made for tomorrow, and since I had a feeling that Avonlea wouldn't come today, I figured we might as well go ahead and schedule the tour. I figured we'd be out of the office around 3:30 or so, so we would have plenty of time to get there.

The receptionist at the doctor tells me that there is a space available at the perinatologist, and I can head over there right now. Umm...were you even going to ask? I have an appointment at 4:30!  Now, if we had gotten out of the appointment in a relatively decent time, I might have been able to make it. But not at 4:15 when we're supposed to check in for our tour at 4:15. The receptionist seemed annoyed at me, and told me I would need to call them to set up another appointment. (You're annoyed at ME?)

On the way to the Studio Tour, I called the perinatologist back and asked for a different appointment. They were booked for the next week. They said to call another office to set up something with them--but they were booked for the next 2 weeks. At that point, I just said to myself, "screw it", and we headed into the WB lot.

As it turns out, the WB website didn't register my online registration. So, they set me up for a tour tomorrow, gave me $5 off per ticket, and waived my service fee. So I called the first perinatologist back AGAIN to see if they could get me in. It is 4:35 at this point. They said they were closed, but asked how long it would take for me to get there. Thankfully, in Burbank, all these places I was going to are within a 5-minute drive of each other.  So, I was able to get to the perinatologist before they closed.

And I got to see my baby girl!

The perinatologist was an awesome guy. Totally patient, even though I knew I was the very last customer of the day (and they actually kept the office open for me). He walked me through the ultrasound, pointing out her head, her little round belly, and her femur. He showed us the details of her face, and showed us as much of a 3D ultrasound as he could (she's so big--she's hiding up against my uterine wall and her arm was covering the other part of her face). He measured the amniotic fluid, to make sure that everything was still okay, and he said everything looked great.  He confirmed (again) that it is a girl, by taking a lovely shot of her labia.  Thanks, Doc. I'm sure she'll love that pic when she's older. :)  He then took a great shot of her profile--the best pic we've had yet. He mentioned that she is around 8lbs, 11oz. He commented that while she is big, she's not too big yet. He showed us a chart and she was about halfway between the "normal" and "big" line.  He mentioned how tall I am and how he doesn't think she is that big comparatively.  He'll give the info to my doctor, and he said that my doctor might talk with me about inducing if he feels like I might need it. He commented, though, that I looked really good--that my arms and legs weren't big, and that I looked like I was "all belly". Way to go, Doc!

We mentioned that we would love for her to arrive while Ashley is in town, and that maybe she's waiting for my dad to get here on Wednesday. He asked when Ashley was leaving, and when Ashley said Monday, he said, "Oh, she should be here one way or another by next Monday."