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.
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