We're having a....Pirate Ship?

At week 7 we went to the OBGYN to hear baby's heartbeat, and get a sonogram. I didn't expect to be able to count the dimples on our child's face, or tell what color hair it would have, but I guess I did have some misconceptions about the quality of the images.

Hearing the heartbeat was amazing and each time I've heard it since, it makes my life stop. But when they handed me the printouts from the sonogram, I wondered if I had to cross my eyes and tilt my head slightly to the left in order to see anything. It was a blob. I mean, I GUESS there was something there, but I found myself nodding and saying "oh, yeah, there it is" to everything the nurse was pointing out. And how did I know that SHE could see anything either? She could have pointed to a pixel blip on the page and told me that was my baby's hand, and I'd never know the difference.

It instantly took me back to those Magic Eye books and posters from 1994--of which, the only one I ever successfully saw was the pirate ship (in every other case, I blatantly lied about being able to see the Polar Bear drinking a Coke or grasshopper balancing on a dandelion).

See for yourself.





If you look at the sonogram and uncross your eyes for precisely 47 seconds, you can see our baby practicing the Heisman pose.

Wishin' and hopin'?

I probably spent a good three days convincing myself that I didn't need to take a pregnancy test.  I had some pretty good arguments, too.  Such as, I had been traveling to Denver, so the flying and time change (yes, I realize that it's only one hour) affected me.   Or, that I had a delayed ovulation or possibly didn't even ovulate at all.  Yes, that was it, after the stressful summer and the new acquisition, it made perfect sense.  But, I would stare at my chart with its obvious thermal shift and count fourteen days and realize that day 14 was actually three days ago.  After I had dinner with my sister and couldn't bring myself to order a margarita I had to admit that maybe, just maybe, the chart wasn't wrong.

So, after picking up a test on my way home I was still doing a great job at convincing myself it was negative.  We had been discussing the idea of a baby, but were still at the "when" stage.  When would we want to start trying?  When would be a good time for us? When will our finances be in a place to support a baby? When would we be out of an apartment and into a house?  But, God had reminded me that He was in control and whenever we had kids would be when He planned.  I felt at peace after this, and was thankful that I have a Father who is in control.  A week later though, I was staring at the positive test and telling Him that I changed my mind.  

I sat on the bathroom floor for several minutes unable to move from shock at seeing a positive pregnancy test.  When Ryan came home and I showed him, I was still shaking and in shock.  The next day I went to my family doctor's office to confirm the test, and was still couldn't believe it when the doctor came into the room telling me congratulations and giving me a hug. This was just added onto when she asked me if I was taking prenatal vitamins.  Prenatal vitamins?  I had only been pregnant for twelve hours and already I was behind?  So now I was in shock, with a good dose of guilt thrown in.

But, I soon scheduled an appointment with an OB, which helped ease the guilt.  And then I got onto the Internet.  When in doubt or unsure, always go first to God and pray, and then go to Google to educate yourself.  I started figuring out due dates and such, and realized that our baby would be due mid-to late July.  My guess was July 19th (I ended up being off only by one day.)  Wow, July 2011.  And I started smiling.

Our Digital Baby

Our baby is definitely a member of Generation D, and is embracing technology so early.

You can follow Baby Thomas on Twitter either by following @lilbabythomas, or by going here if you aren't on Twitter. In addition to updates on what it's like being a baby in Sara's womb, fabulous prizes will be given away. A beach house outside of Phoenix, the Showcase Showdown wheel from Price is Right, and one million Colorado dollars are among the confirmed prizes.

The PS3 Can Also Play Disney Blu-Rays

One of my first reactions after I found out that we were pregnant was realizing that everything in my life changes. Everything I own, or will own, is now centered around this "person". A dining room set needs to be checked for its "high chair" friendliness. Furniture needs to be rearranged to ensure there is ample room for a pack-n-play (I had been calling them "cages"). The most shocking realization was that my favorite gaming device, the PlayStation 3, will be showing less military action thriller games and more flying elephants and/or talking monkeys.

Every time I look around our apartment, and every house we look at, the things that I bought for me transform into something to be used for the child. Before my eyes.

We've all seen this commercial, and it the first time I saw it I cracked up laughing. Now I tear up and sob uncontrollably (I keep telling Sara that hormones don't just affect the women).

How Many Lines is That?

We're pregnant. Wow.

We couldn't be more excited about our "condition", and July will be the best month since we've been married. I'll also be honest--we weren't planning on being pregnant right now.

We've always planned on having kids, and being pregnant is an obvious part of that, just not right...now. Sara travels a lot for work, usually from Monday to Thursday night, and we don't get to see as much of each other as we'd like to. I'd worried about having kids at this stage of our life because the one thing that everyone tells you about having a child is that once you find out that you're pregnant everything in your life changes. Frankly, I wasn't ready for my life to change. I was ready for the love of my life to be in the same city as me seven days a week, and get to spend time with her every day. Adding a child (and all that comes with it) was not on my checklist.

That being said, I wanted to want kids, and knew that my attitude had to change before we added a third member to our family. I had to let it go. There is no perfect time to have them. I prayed about to be able to change my attitude about it, to not stress about not being able to have as much one-on-one time with my wife before we have a kid. I woke up one morning, and realized that I was okay with it--having and raising a child was bigger than how much time I got to spend with Sara.

10 days later I saw two lines.

When Sara texted me from Denver International Airport to tell me that she was going to pick up a pregnancy test on her way home, I was slightly surprised. We had no idea that this would be coming, but I was fine with it. Almost excited, even. On my way home to our apartment, I realized that I wanted us to be pregnant. I would be disappointed if it was negative.

I walked into our apartment, and when a shell shocked Sara handed me the white stick from CVS, I knew what I'd find. Or thought I'd find. I saw two lines. I was hoping for a clear answer. I'm a guy, we prefer things to be as easy possible. Why didn't we buy the test that instead of vertical lines displays "Pregnant" or "Not Pregnant"? I've seen them, I know they exist (for some reason they're advertised during every NFL game). Once I decoded the one or two line issue and hugged and kissed Sara, I realized she'd been silent the entire time. She couldn't believe that this was real, and wasn't 100% sure that it was.

She said she'd spent ten minutes sitting on the floor in shock after seeing the two lines, and still hadn't recovered. As excited as she was, she just felt like this couldn't be happening. It was too surreal. After an hour or so she decided to get more clarity, and took another test. It too, came up positive. We kept talking, and letting this sink in. We were going to have a baby.

But it seemed like she was still skeptical. She would mention things like "if the test is right", this will be amazing. "As long as it's true", we'll need some nursery furniture. I knew she knew it was 99% a sure thing, but needed something to assure her that her tests had not been a fake. She had not gotten the ONE three pack box that were giving out false positives to unsuspecting women.

I had to do anything I could to help give her peace of mind.

The tests working fine: one of us is not pregnant.