BlessingS

Our friends' ultrasound showed twins! They are a little freaked out, and she has some truly awful morning sickness settling in, but we are thrilled for them.

Thirteen Months

My little munchkin,

I thought it was crazy when you turned one, but now you're more than one and it seems even crazier. You are really becoming a kid. You can take at least a few steps, and you don't drink from bottles, and you wear size 5 shoes -- with real soles! When did you get so grown up?

Though your birthday was last month, this month, you had a birthday party (since you were out of town for a wedding on your actual birthday). Your closest family and friends were all there. You did a lot of pushing of things (your car, your wagon -- including when other kids were in it) and you ate a cupcake. It was your first taste of sugar, and you seemed uncertain at first, but you caught on. But only after Grandma smeared some icing in your mouth. You then separated the top of the cupcake from the stump and waved the stump around, mashing it in your hair, then throwing it on the ground. You were quite a mess by the time you were done. And you did not like getting cleaned up.



Honestly, one of the biggest developments this month were the ones that were the least obvious. You really started to figure things out. You figured out how to open the latch on the cupboard with the DVDs. Strangely, you take out the same one every time -- Madagascar on BluRay, which is funny since we don't have a BluRay player. Perhaps one day. You also became obsessed with phones and have, sadly, figured out how to push random sequences of buttons on my (old) cell phone -- sequences I can't seem to identify, as my phone stopped ringing for several weeks. You have also figured out how to change the channel on the DVR without using a remote and how to change the volume on the receiver when it's off so that when someone turns the TV on it blasts at an obscene volume. Awesome. Maybe our decision to let you watch the Pats on TV wasn't such a good idea.

Finally, one of my favorite of your discoveries has been your discovery of the value of fitting in. To be clear, it's not my favorite because I want you to want to fit in. Rather it's my favorite because it is absolutely hysterical to watch you when you hear others around you laughing and realize that while you don't get the joke you don't want to be left out of the fun, so you let out a "ha, ha, ha" that is so obviously fake it makes everyone laugh harder. It's adorable. That said, sometimes you're better off not getting the joke -- just because everyone else is laughing doesn't mean it was actually funny.

Whether or not we make you laugh or merely make you fake laugh, you certainly make us laugh. Our big boy.

All my love,

Mommy

684

Their second beta, on Friday at 14dp3dt, was 684. Ultrasound is scheduled for 10/20. They are starting to believe this might really be happening. Yay!

We went away with them and another couple this weekend. It was a little weird being the pregnancy expert (being the only one there who had been pregnant before), being asked to offer advice on foods to avoid, what symptoms were normal, etc. She freely admitted to having spent three years focused on getting pregnant and then on raising a baby and having spent no time at all thinking about the being pregnant part. It was actually kind of funny.

First Appointment

We have a heartbeat. Based on measurements, EDD is 6/1/10 (consistent with my guess that I ovulated late -- based on LMP, EDD would be 5/25, I think). Crazy.

Wordless Wednesday: Reflective

207

That was our friends' beta this morning, at 11dp3dt. Whoo-hoo!

Whoo-hoo again!

I cried a little when I found out, and I assume they did too.

Secrecy

(I originally wrote this post on my Blackberry and then it disappeared. If you are someone who posts via Blackberry, got any pointers?)

I thought it might be worthwhile to explain why it is that keeping this pregnancy under wraps is important to me. There are, in fact, a number of reasons. The first is probably the most obvious reason: the uncertainty over the outcome. We are the type of people who wait until they are out of the first trimester to tell anyone other than our parents or siblings (and with the pregnancy we lost, we didn't/hadn't planned to tell them before the end of the first trimester either and didn't end up telling them until we were pregnant again). I know there are a lot of people who don't wait or who think that doing so is silly, and I have no problem with that approach for them, but we aren't those people. In part, it's the fear of having to untell. In part, it's something else that I can't name -- superstition, maybe? But we are non-tellers.

The second reason can best be summarized as "work." I am nervous about taking two leaves so close together. I am worried about the signals it sends. I am especially worried because of how difficult it has been for me to get any traction work-wise since I came back from leave in March. I am worried that it will be even more difficult doing so a second time. I am worried that I won't get to come back from leave a second time. I am worried that it sends the wrong message about my commitment to my job. Or, perhaps, I am worried that it in fact sends exactly the right message as far as accuracy of content goes, but I'm just not sure I want the message sent. Regardless, postponing telling anyone seems like an easy way to avoid having to confront these issues.

The third reason is our friends and their current IVF cycle. I really hope this is the one for them. But whether it is or it isn't, I don't want to say anything about us while they are still waiting to find out. If it is the one, I want to give them time to enjoy being the pregnant people without anyone else being pregnant too. And if it's not, I want them to have time to grieve before I drop a fucking bomb on them. Man, I hope this is the one, for their sake and for my own -- the guilt might kill me.

So that's three of the prime reasons why we will be keeping this a secret, and why I will be saving this as a draft for now. And why I would love it if I could just never tell anyone at all.