Two Things

First, the business side of things. I've fixed the comments links so that they work now. Also, the archives are as they should be.

Second, the exciting side of things. At this point, I think most people know about our baby-in-training. It's really been wonderful telling everyone about such a big thing in our lives. Everyone is full of questions when we tell them, so I thought I'd post those questions and their answers here.

Q: How long have you known?
A: At this point, we've known for about a week and a half. We waited almost a week before we started telling people.

Q: How far along are you?
A: I'm about five weeks along.

Q: When are you due?
A: April 2.

Q: How are you feeling?
A: I feel normal, actually. I've been a little more weepy than usual and I've had a few nights of light insomnia and when I'm working out hard for a long time I get tired sooner than before I was pregnant, but other than that, I feel normal. The light symptoms I have had haven't been enough that, had I not been expecting to get pregnant, they would have made me think "Huh, maybe I should take a pregnancy test." Until I missed Aunt Flo, that is.

Q: Have you thought of any names yet?
A: No. We've only known for about a week that there's a baby in there. The first step is telling people about it and getting used to the idea of not being able to fit into my cute jeans for much longer. We still have 35 weeks to consider a name.

Q: When is your first doctor's appointment?
A: We've chosen to use a midwife at a birthing center rather than the more traditional hospital route, even though we have heard good things about St. Luke's and we both really like my OB/GYN. If you're interested, I have a link to our birthing center, Treasure Valley Midwives, in the sidebar. The things that really draw us to the birthing center are their attention to personalized care and the fact that at the birthing center they practice a natural philosophy of pregnancy and delivery. But our first appointment with our midwife is August 25 and at that appointment we should be able to hear the heartbeat.

Q: Are you going to find out if you're having a boy or a girl?
A: Yes. We won't be able to do that until I'm 20 weeks along, but yes, we will find out the baby's sex.

Q: Is this a German baby?
A: Yes, this baby definitely happened in Germany.

It's Official

We've started telling family and friends, so I guess it's official. Not that keeping it a secret would make it any less valid...I think it's just making it more real for us. I don't feel anything still, so my only dose of reality is the positive pregnancy test and the fact that people are all the time congratulating me. It's been very exciting being able to share our happy news with people we love because they are so very happy for us. I think we've made more women cry in the last few days than ever before, and I think that's OK. It's wonderful to feel so loved and to know that our pin head-sized baby is that loved already too.

Positive!

We took a test this morning. Pregnancy test, that is. We’ve been excited and talking about it for a couple of days now and this morning our curiosity won.

Kelly sat on the floor in front of me while I did my thing with the little test strip and set it on the floor between us. He sat there holding my watch in both hands, following the second hand intently for the first minute that we hovered over the little plastic fortune teller.

That’s when we noticed a faint, blue line beginning to appear. I think we both sort of gasped.

Thirty seconds later we were sure there was a light positive sign in the circular test window. Kelly consulted the directions for the umpteenth time, which said that even a very faint or even partial plus sign meant a positive result.

By then, two minutes were up. The result was final. There was no mistaking what was there.

Kelly looked up at me with an excited, happy, almost whimsical look on his face – a look I’ve only seen on a few occasions like our wedding day and the moment he first told me he loved me. I'm sure I matched him. We laughed. We kissed. We hugged. We looked at the test strip again, then laughed, kissed and hugged more. It felt purely magical.

All day, we've taken turns saying things to each other like, "You're going to be a MOM!" or "Hey, DAD, would you hand that to me?" It's still not quite real yet, but I imagine it won't take too long to set in. I also gave Kelly my gift today - I bought pregnancy tee-shirts from 2 chix a while ago as a surprise. I'm excited to wear them together! It won't be long now!