You'll shoot your eye out.

I'm 18 weeks pregnant now and these past few days have been eye-opening. No, I probably won't shoot them out they're open so wide, but what you've heard is true, you can pee your pants. I'd heard it before and thought, "losers, I'm fully potty-trained, I ain't gonna pee my pants no matter what."

He he he, life will smack you in the head, I mean read my previous post if you want to see about life and collisions with my head.

So Monday night I'm getting ready to leave the house for a music class and decide I'd better use the bathroom before I'm stuck in the class for a couple hours, on my way to the bathroom, I sneeze three times. "Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, I peed!" Brandon follows me on my run to the bathroom, where we survey the damage and both laugh until we cry.

Today at work, I giggled and you guessed it, more pee. I use pantyliners now. I guess I'll be relying on them until July.

I hate being pregnant.

Telling your husband he's a "baby daddy."

So if you've read my blog before you probably get that I'm not a huge "baby person", nor has it been my life's dream/plan/vision to make babies. That being said, it's actually a pretty humorous story how we find ourselves in the boat of expectant parents.

If you go back to my nose job post http://rantsandcommentswithbibi.blogspot.com/2008/11/new-nose.html, that takes us all the way back to October. At that point in time we tossed around the idea of baby makin', but because I'd be having surgery we waited to "try" until after I was free and clear of the surgery and pain meds, besides looking at those pictures I was, "none too sexy." We make an "attempt," I have a negative pregnancy test and what I think is a period a couple weeks later. Whew! Scary, but looks like we're in the clear! Besides the holidays are coming and I've got traveling to do and that massive Thanksgiving meal to prepare, I don't have time to be pregnant and I wasn't 100% on that plan anyhow.

I have some weight gain and a couple pimples, but who didn't put on a little weight over the holidiays? In addition to recovering from my surgery and "taking it easy" I added a bulging disc to the equation and could barely walk, so exercise took a back seat. Now those extra pounds and sleepiness don't seem completely out of the norm.

Holiday parties commence and just to be sure it's safe to partake in the free-flowing booze I take another pregnancy test just to be sure that's not the reason for the weight gain. Again, negative. So I live up the holiday season adding a squishiness to my middle, but writing it off as my back problem and the holiday eating. I've had 2 negative pregnancy tests by now and not really a "missed" period. Yes the periods were "different," but not non-existent.

Here I'll tell you about my sister. I am the older sister by 15 months. For my entire life, I've been strong and healthy. In recent years I've endured some interesting health situations, but nothing life-threatening or chronic. Two years ago my thyroid went crazy and I had what is called, Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. This is a temporary thyroid condition that allowed me to experience EVERY POSSIBLE thyroid symptom. I went from being very hyper-thyroid to very hypo-thyroid. Insomnia, diarrhea, hair falling out, constipation, weight loss, weight gain, falling asleep in the middle of the day, skin rashes, holes through my fingernails, and a bunch of other symptoms that came and went over the course of the year that it took my body to re-regulate and correct itself. With that in mind, those "pregnancy" symptoms that most people pick up on, I was able to dismiss, especially since I didn't suffer any type of morning/day/night sickness, and the few days I didn't feel great were during cold and flu season and everyone seemed to not feel "awesome." My sister on the other hand, has suffered numerous breast and ovarian cysts, she's even had surgery to remove these from her body. When I described an "ache" in my side to her (an R.N.) she seemed to think that I too could now be suffering from an ovarian cyst.

We're now into January and a few weeks ahead of my expected January period. My sister said to keep an eye on it and call my doctor if the ache persisted. I wait a few weeks, take ANOTHER pregnancy test (also negative) and call the doctor. They agree that my symptoms do sound like a cyst and that some Ibuprofen and my period (when it comes) should take care of it. Well that period never came. I take another pregnancy test - you guessed it, NEGATIVE and yes, I used my pee not Brandon's or the dogs'. That's 4 negative pregnancy tests, so I call the doctor and say I really should get in for an appointment, because in addition to this pesky cyst, my throat is sore and I should get a strep test too. So on Thursday, February 5, I get into the doctor. I pee in a cup so they can see if there's a bladder infection or something else going on causing my abdominal pain. Naturally, the doctor decides to perform a pelvic exam to get a handle on this cyst. So picture it, I'm up on the table, feet in the stirrups, doctor "in there", nurse holding my legs and a knock at the door. I say "everybody come on in", I mean who would want to miss this party, I'm doing my big show after all? The voice at the door belongs to the laboratory technician and she says, "it's positive." Now there are eyes at me. I say, "what's positive, I haven't had my strep test yet." The faces attached to those eyes realize that I have no idea what they are talking about, how they all got it so quickly I don't know, but I'm pretty embarrassed by my ignorance. The nurse, so sweet, says "congratulations, you're pregnant!" I don't think I blinked through the rest of the appointment. The doctor continues the pelvic exam takes a guess at 10-12 weeks along and schedules me for an ultrasound so we can pinpoint my real due date and when this "blessed event" occurred. The doc also checked, and no strep either.

Those home tests, can be wrong - very wrong. The doctor told me that in addition to testing too early, you can test too late. Apparently so, since I was about 12 weeks for the last test I took.

Still in shock, I leave the clinic and call Brandon. "Where are you?" "In a meeting in Cottage Grove for another 20 minutes." "Okay, come home when you're done." I could wait for 20 minutes to tell him that his dream was coming true, right? The dream that he's had since we met that I did not share, but figured we could have a happy life without despite that. I'll be honest and tell you that we've often talked about divorcing so he could pursue a life and a marriage that could provide him with his life-long dream of fatherhood. Don't hate me here, I was trying to provide an out for him if a life with me didn't truly make him happy. I would be perfectly happy living to a ripe old age never pushing a person out of my body, and then raising said person to a level of competency that would allow them to grow up, and one day make me into a grandmother. After all those discussions, we decided to pursue our life together and look into other avenues to satisfy that parenting instinct.

So 50 minutes later (if you know Brandon, 20 minutes is just an initial negotiation point) he finally gets home. I meet him at the door with the camera and say, "I don't have strep, we're having a baby."

I think within 24 hours he'd told everyone we'd ever met.

The Saturday after we found out we we're expecting, (2 days later) I had to buy maternity pants, as the belly literally popped out. I had gone up two pant sizes in the previous 4 months and was relieved that I wasn't just getting fatter.

Whew! That's the story of how we found ourselves here, pregnant, not knowing for all that time (at our ultrasound that next week, they determined that we were 17 weeks - and indeed that "try" that we'd made back in October had took. This is the speediest pregnancy ever. We find out we're pregnant, get a cute "belly", and at our 20 week ultrasound next week, we find out if it's a boy or a girl.

Oh and in case you're interested, here's a copy of the email I sent that Monday to my co-workers announcing my pregnancy.

Bridget M - DOR
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2009 8:13 AM
To: DOR DL (LOT)ALL
Subject: Mmmmm doughnuts

Hi there,

Firstly, I want to express my sincerest apology to those of you who, over the past 3 months, may have experienced one of my many mood swings or have been trampled by me on my stampede to the ladies' room. Secondly, I'd like to express appreciation to those of you who may have noticed an increase in acne or a pronounced weight gain and didn't feel the need to point it out to me. (Trust me, I'm aware of it.) My guess is that over the next 6 months the weight will continue to increase and in addition to acne and trips to the restroom, I may experience a whole host of interesting symptoms.

So in honor of you and your patience and understanding there are doughnuts in the tel-sell lounge. Please help yourself.

Sincerely,
Bridget and Belly

Type O Hero!

So yesterday we had our first appointment with our doctor - actually not the first time we've met him. He's been our "regular" doctor for about 8 years now. Now he's just putting on his OB hat; and I'm putting on weight and maternity pants. They took blood, pee and measurements. I'm told that this is standard operating procedure from here on out. I guess so far, so good. Our doctor, thankfully, is taking the "it's not a problem, unless you make it a problem" approach to our pregnancy; and since we didn't know we were pregnant until we were 4 months in, this will suit our personalities just fine. We are now scheduled for our second ultrasound (the first actually determined our due date, which is; drum roll . . . . July 24) and at this second one we should be able to learn the gender of what we've been referring to as "Belly." I will tell you that we're hoping for a girl, and I'll also tell you, "that a boy would be fine", because I am supposed to say that. Truthfully, so long as all of its parts are where they belong and "Belly" isn't predisposed to riding the short bus, we'll take what we get. It's just that all of our friends have just had boys and our sister-in-law is expecting a boy in 6 weeks; and it would be fun to shop in the "pink" section.

Oh so the "Type O Hero" thing - I have the rare blood type of O-. I know, you can hold your applause until I say something truly spectacular like this, "I am donating my cord blood" so if someone should need healthy cord blood from a healthy type O- gal it will be saved. Okay, that's all about that, but I am excited because it seems pretty space-age to me. The website of the company that will be preserving my cord blood is kinda cute about it, I'll paint a mind picture for you. Now that you're registered and you have your information kit, Step 1 - simply call us when you go into labor. We will prepare storage for your donation. (happy couple in car on way to hospital.) Step 2 - call us when you have delivered the baby and we will dispatch our courier service to pick up your donation (cute mother holding infant, while on telephone in hospital room.) Step 3 - our courier service brings your donation to our state-of-the art cryogenic facility (smiling man in van and then a picture of a stainless steel refrigeration unit with frost rolling out.)
That's it - you may have saved another life! Ta da!

A bun in the "proverbial" oven.

After careful planning and consideration, we're pregnant! Okay, so you "get" the messy details, and you know the kind of considerate words my husband was whispering or panting . . . ipso-facto, boom a baby B is on the way.

So anywho . . . we'll be celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary before baby arrives, we've had discussion after discussion, and feel pretty confident that we're as freaked out as the next guy. If teenagers can do it and the woman from California can have 14 - ahem, we'll NOT go down the road of how we feel about that, we suspect that with all the thinking, talking and "research" we've done, we'll be able to parent in our own unique and successful way and can mess up a kid with the same level of skill as those who haven't pre-thought . After all, you've never seen a pair of well-adjusted, kind, intelligent dogs like ours.

We are the kind of people that will put a fair amount of prayer in, leaning on our parents (after all, look how nice we turned out), and plain old shooting from the hip. If we can make a marriage work, we can do this. Right?

I guess this explains my fascination with Sonic Drive-In.
From here on out I'll try to get you the latest on the baby. First ultrasound is Friday the 13th! We'll know our due date then.