Just some photos...

Here are some photos that I thought I would share with y'all.

D

First, July 8th; the test. This is a picture of test #2, which pretty much confirmed what test #1 told us.

I bought the digital kind, because I wanted to be sure. Those "meh, not sure if it's blue or not" and "sheeez, the line is fady-like, honey" tests are just not gonna cut it. As the commercial says, "The most expensive thing you'll ever pee on."

This is the Chinchilla Belly. I was going to draw something everyday, but then when out time was cut short, I voted it out. Plus, I wasn't quite sure what the markers would do to my kid. That would be grounds for prison time if it made her come out zebra-striped.

Before we headed to the store, she had to water her flowers, So I snapped some pictures. She's really showing now. Shocking, isn't it? This kid has grown so fast... Those of you who saw us not long ago in May will probably poop yourselves. Perhaps you should take the laptop to the bathroom.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Oh; we've got the basics prepared for the coming kid. I bought a bad mutha of a car seat (which is still in the box in case we get one of those super mega stroller/carseat 5000 thingys) the other day, and we have fresh drawers to bring her home in (for the kid and Carrie). We're putting the emergency bag together tonight so we're ready on that end.

One other must-have piece of parenting technology has been acquired. Last night, Carrie's manager cut us an incredible deal on a end-of-model camcorder. It's one of those with the built in hard drive, which means I can record, at minimum, 10 hours of video. What this means is more video on my blogs and a ton of AFV moments. I can pull it straight to the computer and burn to DVD. Awesome; just freakin' awesome.

Blessings and love to you all,
D

Cruisin' along like a Cadillac...

29 July 2008: The visit to the doctor went off without a hitch today! Our “little” girl is now around 6 lb 2 oz, which is up 13 oz from last week’s visit. If you do the math, that’s a gain of about 1.86 oz/day. At this rate, if she goes to August 26 as predicted, that’s gonna put her at 9 lb 6 oz. Math is fun. I doubt that will be the case; I honestly doubt if she waits that long to pop. We’ll see!

We got to see fingers and toes today, and she gave the sonogram nurse a swift kick. Funny to watch that happen in real time. NINJA BABY! She’s got hair on her head already, which means she has more than I do and she’s not even born yet. Awesome.

It still overwhelms me to see a live baby inside Carrie's tummy. The definition of a humanoid is getting ever clearer, and she's so active now! At night, I put my lips against her belly and sing to my baby and I can feel her kicking and punching my mouth. That slowed down once I switched from Pantera to Jack Johnson, thankfully.

I took prego Carrie pictures outside of our townhouse last evening, so I'll stick one or two up when I get home. It's going to be a shock to our friends who saw us not two months ago. She's become so... round! She still doesn't have any swelling anywhere or back pain or the usual pregnancy issues, which is such a blessing. Hell; I got home from work yesterday and she had cleaned the apt on her day off. She's resilient, and so strong. Probably the strongest spirit I've even known.

I can't wait to see our superkid! We don't head back until next week, as the doctor is very pleased with how everything is going, despite our crazy beginnings. I would've never expected that my baby would be relatively trouble-free; what a crazy blessing!

I hope you're all ready for the coming of my baby girl. Oh; yes, we are working on names. We have narrowed the selection to a short list, but I'm not posting anything up yet. Carrie already outted Esmerelda and Wilhelmina. Dammit.

Thanks for reading! That’s the latest from Bump Watch ’08!

Everything's Coming Up Roses...

You know, it's probably good that we didn't find out about the pregancy until later on, because I'm already slacking on the blogs.

Business first....

25 July 2008: Bright and early Friday morning, we headed to the doc's office for a check-up and to review the blood work. After getting in without much wait, Carrie went through the usual checks, like blood pressure and weight. Again, the doctor is amazed by her constitution (it's the Nordic heritage, I'm telling ya). We went over the blood work, and everything is just aces.

She even went so far as to say it looked like she had been taking prenatal vitamins full-term, even though she's only had them for 2 weeks. My honey rocks! We are scheduled for our second ultrasound on Tuesday again, and she'll be getting her cervix checked again then, too, to see if she is starting to open the gates.

Again, I encourage you to repent before this child comes.

The OBGYN offices must be some of the most efficient doctor's offices I've ever seen. You're appointment is at 11? No worries; you're in ten minutes late at the most. Crammed into a small, antiseptic room? You won't be there for long, because a doc or nurse is in there quick. It's really starting to make me rethink the need for women in politics. Maybe they can streamline Washington and trim some serious fat. Of course, not Hillary. Now, I'm waaaaay off topic...

For those who want to know, we are cramming this pregancy thing like I crammed term papers in college. We have managed to register for stuff we need at Babies 'R' Us and Target. The amount of stuff they have for babies is really overwhelming, but we know that you don't need much starting out, so we're gonna be fine. Really, just getting the place ready here at the apartment is the biggest deal. We need to keep the guest bed for visiting grandparents in the first few days, and so she will be in the big master bedroom with us. That's fine; we probably won't sleep much anyway.

Some of you have asked for our address so you can send beer and nachos for me. That's sweet of you. Oh, and baby stuff would be cool, too. Condoms would be great, in the future. I ran out... but I'm sure you guessed that.

Darren & Carrie
4936 Vandelia St
Dallas TX 75235

There's our address. If you don't know our last names, just msg me. I think you all do, though. We've received so many wonderful messages from all of you from my blog here and on my regular blog site, as well as from the e-mails I've sent out. I want you all to know that these are the best gifts we've gotten; they lift our spirits, make us laugh, and warm our hearts as we take on the biggest challenge of our lives to this point. I share all of your warm notes with Carrie, and we both want to thank each of you for all your wonderful messages. That's the most serious, heartfelt message you'll ever hear from me, so eat it up.

Carrie's mom and dad bought us a crib today, and I'll be picking it up at J.C. Penney next week. Then Dad gets his tools out... which will, I'm sure, merit an entire blog just for that. I'm good with my tools, though; otherwise I wouldn't be a dad, right? Heh, heh...

Again, thanks for all your love. I'm off to search Craigslist for baby goodies and super bargains. I love that site!

Bump Watch 2009: er, 08... dammit.

So here we are at entry #2, but it might as well be entry #200... and we'll call it "Bump Watch 2008" now. Let me explain.

21 July 2008: Carrie and I are lounging on the loveseat, watching CSI (I think; one tends to forget the details after the fact). I was absentmindedly rubbing my hand on her belly, because I do it on mine all the time and thought hers might get jealous. I brushed across what felt like a hard spot, about the size of a lime. My eyes widened, and then it moved. It moved. It freakin' moved. I got all excited and called my mom, but expected the reasoning that I got.

"There's no way you are feeling the baby at 8 weeks, honey," my mom knowingly told me. Dad chimed in with, "It's probably just a gas bubble." Ah; parental logic. I wrote it off as my imagination, and that was that.

22 July 2008: Time for doctor's visit numero dos. We get in quicker than I think I've ever seen in a doctor's office, which was really nice. I was already getting hungry for lunch, and as we walk downstairs, I can smell the barbecue the caterer we saw outside must have brought in. Dammit; I'm not getting any of that," I think, and then quickly remember why we're here.

We step into the ultrasound room, which is small but effective. They ask Carrie to strip down below the waist, and she asks me if she has to take her underwear off as well. "Well, they aren't going to work around it, honey," I reply, with a grin on my face.

The woman comes back in, and prepares the instrument used to check. Once again, I'm reminded why I'm so glad I'm a guy. Upon insertion, the OB nurse backs out almost immediately."We're gonna have to do this with the other piece, honey. You're further along than what they had estimated; quite a bit further." Our hearts jump a bit, but her Texas drawl calms our nerves a little, taking the shock out.

That lasted for about 30 seconds. Then the real shock kicked in."Yeah, darlin'; you're way farther along than what they thought. I'd guess you're pretty close to having a baby!"

Holy s***.

"You wanna know the sex of the baby?" she asked, nonchalantly. "Yes; please," we reply with vacant expressions scored across our faces. "See that? That's... [skipping science here], so you're having a girl!"

A girl. My baby's a girl. Time to clean the shotgun and work on my mean faces.

We continued with the exam, getting to see the feet, hands, face and organs, including the kidneys, stomach, liver, brain (freakin' huge, heh heh) and heart. Seeing her little heart beating put me over the edge, and I could feel the tears sneaking down my cheeks.

My first call was to mom; it went something like this:

"Hey, mom? You remember last night, when I called and said I felt something move?"

"Yeah... what?"

"Yeah, about that; it was the baby. We're quite a bit further along than what we were initially told."

"How much?"

"Like instead of 7-8 weeks, we're around 34 weeks."

Silence.

I told mom that we would call back later on after meeting with the doctor, and ended the call. I hope she was sitting down.

We met with the doctor shortly after, and discussed the craziness of our situation. They took a urine sample, and there were no problems with that. They took four vials of blood, and we go back Friday to see the results of the blood tests. The doctor was actually ready to admit her to the hospital right then and there, because her blood pressure was high. She decided to give Carrie some time to cool down; the shock of the information we just got was the culprit, and her blood pressure went back down to normal. The doc said that from what she could tell, everything looked fine. The baby's around 5 1/2 pounds right now, and seems perfectly healthy. The crucial information we wanted was unattainable now; since the pregnancy was so far along, they couldn't give us an exact due date. Could be 5 weeks; could be two.

We were glad to not have to head directly to the hospital, but were (and are) still in shock. We went home and laid down and just thought. I won't detail all of the things that are swimming in my head now, as that would afford it's own book, but rest assured that we both have our heads above water... for now.

* * *

We have so much to do, and now the months of time to plan and prepare are gone without it even being our fault. Typically I can blame procrastination, but this time I have to blame our sneaky little girl. :-) We're getting ready with a new fervor, and hope that we can at least have the basics ready. Ironically, we recieved a package from Carrie's mom with the book "What to Expect When You're Expecting" in it. Anyone know where I can get the Cliff Notes on this?

We're trying to squeeze in for the one day newborn classes at Baylor, as well as the maternity tour, but realistically, there's only one before we're going to have our girl. Craziness.

Say a prayer if you do that kind of thing. This is the most focus I've ever needed in my life. I feel like we're going to war and skipped basic training. Hooah!

More to come soon!

D

And now, pictures.

Bump Watch 2009: Thus it begins...

Okay, so you probably read the earlier blog regarding our new addition (not a tribute band, i'm talking about the wee baby). I'm going to be chronicling everything for posterity, so here we go!


8 July 2008: We take two pregancy tests, and both of them come back as positive. I feel like I just won the lottery, but was instantly reminded of all the taxes I'm gonna have to pay.

9 July 2008: We spend the morning searching for a good OBGYN in Dallas to verify everything. After searching the internet and comparing ratings and balancing all this with insurance coverage, we pick a winner and set up an appointment for the following Wednesday. Now the longest week of my life begins... We decided to wait until after the doc's visit to tell family, just in case it's only gas.

12 July 2008: We can't wait anymore and spill the beans to immediate family. No friends yet; the network carries faster than a fiber line, so we avoid that mess. Moms are elated; dads grin and nod. My sister decides she needs a new tattoo.

14 July 2008: The vag mechanic, aka doctor's office calls and ups the appointment to Tuesday morning. We're happy, because that's 36 hours sooner than we expected.

15 July 2008: We arrive at the initial doctor's visit. The building looks like it just appeared from 1976, but the inside is much nicer. Within screaming distance of Baylor Medical, too, so that's a plus. After a veritable book of paperwork, we patiently wait. I read "The Best Seat In Second Grade," and pray that if I have a boy, he doesn't smuggle a hampster into the museum.

We meet with the OBGYN nurse for this initial visit. She hits Carrie with a barrage of questions that would make Rumsfeld say, "Damn; that's a lot of questions." As Carrie is adopted and it was a closed adoption, she doesn't know much at all about her family history genetic or otherwise, so a lot of these questions remain unanswered. The nurse senses her nervousness, and explains that they test for most of these things anyway. She then pummels me with her verbal ballistics, and I realize that my kid may turn out to be a ginger. Please, Lord; no.

The nurse sends us home with a portfolio of materials, along with a good 60 days of prenatal vitamins. You should see these pills; I've shoved worming pills down the mouths of cattle that were smaller than some of these. Carrie's okay with it; after all, she's vitamin-ing for two now.

We make another appointment for the following week for the first sonogram. The nurse estimates Carrie is about 7 weeks along, so we should be able to hear the heartbeat at this next appointment. Cool!

20 July 2008: Target trip number one... for anything baby-related. Time to start shopping for some maternity pants and shirts, or as I call them, "eatin' drawers." I'm really thinking about getting some of these in my size. They are possibly the most comfortable-looking pants in the world. I digress...

We spent a good half-hour in the baby section, until I started to bleed from my eyes. I can't believe the insane amount of stuff for newborns. Breast pumps (I still laugh when I say it), slings, formula, diapers, food, bottle washers, bottle warmers, binkys, blinkies, pink blankys... it's crazy. We booked out of there, and I was forced to buy a new game for the Wii just to justify all that baby thinking.

* * *

The next doctor's visit is tomorrow, so you can expect an update after that. Hope you enjoyed reading the saga thus far; stay tuned for more fun and frivolity from D&C!

Putting the "Sir" in Surprise...

There are a lot of monumental things that can happen in a man's life. His first car (mine was a 1982 Mazda Rx-7), the first time he touches a boob; these are life-altering events.

I just had one.

Last week Tuesday July 8th, I was at work, biding my time writing away about some random shoe that I don't really find amazing, but if you were to read my copy you would be dumbfounded at how cool I make them sound. I digress...

I was sitting there when I get a text message from Carrie. Here's the basics of the conversation:

Carrie: "I need you to pick up a test on the way home."

Darren: "What; a spelling test?"

Carrie: "No, smartass."

Darren: "Are you late?"

Carrie: "About a week and a half. Plus, Aiesha [her homegirl at work] said that I'm glowing like her sister did when she was pregnant."

Darren: "Black people glow?"

Carrie: "Smartass."

Darren: "Okay, I'll take care of it. Love you."

So, on the way home from work, I stopped by CVS (because Walgreen's is the devil) and picked up a test. I got a good deal, too; two tests for the price of one! AWESOME!

That night, after Carrie got home from work, she took test number one. She went into the downstairs bathroom, which is feet from the couch. "Did you do it," I asked.

"Yeah." Okay; just a yeah? "Did you look at it yet? It says it only takes 30 seconds..." I was getting impatient at this point, so I got up and looked for myself, since she had not.

Pregnant. I shook it to make sure the "Not" wasn't just hiding behind the LCD, laughing at me. That "Not" was gonna take me seriously.

"Hmm. Okay, we'll do test #2 after the thing resets, okay?" We both suddenly found ourselves locked in the most awkward hour of our lives todate. TV lost interest, and a beer was the furthest thing from my mind. We passed the time rather quickly, but there wasn't much discussion, other than "Aww... hurry up!"

An hour and one forced pee later, we were staring at another instant winner.

I can say right now that at that moment, Carrie was the most beautiful, most fragile thing i had ever seen in my life. She was glowing. Sure, the glow came from shock and a slight sense of foreboding, but she was warm and... how to put it? I can't; I don't have the words.

We laughed, we cried, we kissed and we talked. A torrential downpour of thoughts flooded my mind. First, of course, was "Ahh dammit why haven't I married this girl yet?," followed by about 1,000 thoughts about what I should do as a father.

We will get married, but after the child is born. If you don't like that, well... suck an egg. Honestly, we both agreed on that decision, because I don't want us to have a shotgun wedding, that seems like it's a marriage for the sake of the child. The welfare of my kid is in no danger; I'm not going to run off or anything like that. I want our wedding to be a celebration of our love in the eyes of God and our families, not a "Well, she's knocked up so at least he's doing the right thing." We aren't trash, we just don't use condoms. There; I said it.

Moving on...

We had our first doctor's appointment Tuesday of this week, which we were very nervous for. Mainly we wanted a physician to tell her that she is, in fact, pregnant, and give us an idea of how far along she is. We met with the nurse, who ran us through the myriad questions about our family histories.

That is the one thing that I think troubles Carrie the most. She is adopted, and doesn't have any family history per se. No idea what genetic issues there might be, basically. After addressing our concerns about this by telling us about the testing they do, we were very relieved and have a ton more confidence than we initially did.

We were given an estimated due date of March 4, which puts her at about 7 weeks. We go back Tuesday again for our first sonogram, and should be able to hear the heartbeat. I can't wait; I honestly can't wait.

We're both excited. Our friends are excited. Our families are excited. Sure; we were all thrown for a bit of a loop when the news came, but there are no regrets, and we will move forward as a family.

Your prayers, thoughts, burnt offerings and the like are appreciated as we move forward. Stay tuned for more on BUMP WATCH '09 right here on my blog. First picture exclusives!!!

ONE LOVE,
D