Baby On The Way – Page 2

Thank You

We just wanted to say a quick thank you for all of your love and support. We truly could not ask for better families and friends and appreciate all your kind words and prayers more than you know. This is certainly a challenging time for us, but it is so comforting to know that we are not alone …

Although we had planned on keeping the sex of Minimarr a surprise until delivery, when we found out he/she had Trisomy 18, we changed our minds. We decided that we wanted as much time as possible to bond with our baby and knowing if we were having a boy or a girl would help us do just that. Last week in a meeting with our genetic counselor, we found out quite accidentally that our sweet little one is a precious baby girl. We have a daughter!!!!

We feel truly blessed to be her parents and love her more than we ever thought possible; she is truly a gift. It breaks our hearts to know that we won’t have as much time with her as we want, but at the same time, we know how lucky we are to get to know her now.

We had an ultrasound today and got to see our sweet little angel again. It’s comforting each and every time to see her moving around and hear her little heartbeat. As hard as it is for us to see our baby and know that we won’t have nearly enough time with her, we treasure every opportunity to visit with her. Despite the sadness and uncertainty that surrounds each visit to the doctor, we cherish every moment we get to spend staring at our beautiful girl. She looks perfect to us …

Thank you again for all your support, we are lucky to have you in our lives.

Love,
Pat and Laurie

Weekends …

I love weekends … they are so relaxing and it’s so nice to spend quality time with the family. I had to work Friday night, so slept during the day on Saturday, but after I woke up, Pat and I just hung out and relaxed. It was wonderful. We had no agenda, and ended up going to dinner and a movie – an actual date! We saw the new Bond movie (wasn’t that good) but had such a nice time anyway. Sunday we woke up, had breakfast hung out, watched the Pats win and gave Bailey the most thorough grooming of her life. She was bathed, brushed, furminated and all her long fur was trimmed. She looks a little choppy, but hey, we’re not professionals! She smells clean, and looks great! The bath totally wore her out, and she slept most of the rest of the afternoon, it was pretty funny. Last night, we headed up to dinner at my parents house, where B played with Mags and tuckered herself out even more – gotta love it! She is such a well behaved dog when she’s tired/sleeping 🙂 When we got home, we discovered that we could use Netflix on Pat’s XBOX, which might be the coolest thing ever. All you do is set up your queue and then turn on XBOX and the movies will play right on your TV. It was so awesome! We watched several Law and Order episodes before heading off to bed. Technology is great, but my techie husband is even better, because I would have had NO idea that was even possible!

In baby news, the human nugget is 15 weeks today! Every website tells you something different, but we like babycenter.com because everything relates to food … this week, “the baby measures about 4 inches long, crown to rump, and weighs in at about 2 1/2 ounces (about the size of an apple)” It’s amazing how much he/she is growing each week! To think I have a little apple swimming around inside of me is just crazy, but so amazing. I don’t think we have another ultrasound until 20 weeks, so it will be even more amazing to see how much he/she will grow between now and then! The 20 week ultrasound is also the “big reveal” to find out if we’re having a boy or a girl, but as most of you know, we don’t want to find out! There aren’t many true surprises in life, so we’re going to wait until that moment in the delivery room when they tell us “It’s a …!” Lucky for us, we know it’s only one of two things – at least we hope anyway 😉

Hope everyone has a good (short) week … Happy Thanksgiving!

2nd Trimester!

Monday marked the beginning of my 14th week of pregnancy, the official start of the second trimester – it seems like such a long time ago that we found out we were pregnant, yet it still feels so new and exciting! It’s a relief to be in the second trimester, because the risk of miscarriage decreases significantly … and I finally told my boss at work, which means the cat is officially out of the bag. Now at least everyone will know that there is a reason I walk around with a goofy grin on my face all day! According to babycenter.com, this week MM can “squint, frown, grimace, pee, and possibly suck his thumb! Thanks to brain impulses, his facial muscles are getting a workout as his tiny features form one expression after another. He now measures 3 1/2 inches — about the size of a lemon — and he weighs 1 1/2 ounces.” Crazy huh?

We can’t wait to see everyone on Thanksgiving!!

Quick Thought

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve seen two sets of our closest friends have their first children. And in that time frame Laus and I have been lucky enough to visit them not long after their big moment.

So we’ve been able to see some pretty Fresh Baby. Not your run of the mill, week-old newborn: I’m talkin’ hours old Fresh. And when there’s Fresh Baby, there’s also Exhausted Parent. And these Exhausted Parents were still stressed, frazzled, and getting ready for many sleepless nights to come. (No offense guys, but you all looked like you got hit by a bus. Or two.) 🙂

Yet I don’t think I’ve ever seen them so utterly happy, proud and smiling so wide. Despite all the waiting, all the stress, and the complete lack of sleep, they’re beaming brighter than the sun.

So I guess we’ve got that to look forward to.

UPDATE:

ps. Please vote in the poll on the right before Laus makes me get rid of the ridiculous choices!

It looks just like me…

That’s what my boss, Vin, told me, anyway.

At one point during the ultrasound, the technician was working the Doppler to see if she could get a better angle. I think we woke it (yeah, we’re still working on a fetus name) up.

It started moving around and it looked like it gave us a wave…

or it was flipping us off for waking it up. Given how I respond to being woken from a sound sleep, I’m thinking it was a single finger salute. Either way, it was amazing to see movement.

Horse poop and Heartbeats

I learned something very disturbing about our precious Bailey last night. Pat and I stayed at my parents house on Saturday night. We had a birthday party for Andrea (happy birthday Andrea!) and then I had a baby shower in the morning and Pat was heading to the Cape to help his dad paint, so it made sense to just stay in Canton rather than drive to back to RI. Anyway, while I was at the baby shower yesterday afternoon, my parents took B and Maggie to the golf course, something they always do. Apparently, this time, Bailey decided that it was a good idea to eat fresh horse poop. My mom said she was literally tossing it in the air and catching it. When my parents caught up to her to tell her “NO“, she ran away, eating the poop all the while. I can’t quite look at her the same and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to … gross.

In human baby news, today marks the beginning of our 13th week of pregancy! YEAH!! We had an ultrasound this afternoon, and saw our little shrimp – the size of the baby, according to babycenter.com 🙂 It was so awesome, both Pat and I were totally enthralled. The baby is already so much bigger than our last ultrasound 5 weeks ago; it actually looks like a baby! It was all curled up in a corner, so the ultrasound tech got it to move, and we saw it squirm all over the place. It was totally amazing, and neither one of us expected to be able to see so much! We saw the profile of it’s face, and we saw arms and legs. It even waved at us at one point, haha. We also got to hear the heartbeat, which was incredible. It’s beating strong at 162 and everything is “right on track” according to the doctor. I feel so relieved and am so excited to finally be able to start telling our family and friends the good news!! I know we waited a long time to share with everyone, but it just felt right for us, and now I can’t wait for everyone to know!!

P.S. Pictures of the ultrasound will be posted later this week!

EDIT: Here’s just one of the ultrasound shots. We’ll post more later once they’re all scanned in…

Now That's a Mini Marr! — Now That's A Mini Marr!

The day we found out!

Tomorrow marks the beginning of our 13th week of pregnancy, so I figured I’d share the story of how Pat and I found out we were indeed pregnant! This is what I wrote the day we found out, Monday, September 15:

Wow! At 1:09 this afternoon I found out some information that will most certainly change the rest of my life. Pat and I are having a baby!! I went to the doctor’s this morning and had a blood test that came back positive. It’s crazy. My period was 10 days late and we haven’t really been doing anything to prevent getting pregnant, but wow! I was so excited/hopeful/nervous that I would be, but there were also so many reasons that I could have just been late – I’ve been working a lot of nights, I traveled cross country – one of the flights being a red-eye and it just didn’t seem possible that I really could be pregnant. Well, I was wrong! I had been feeling tired, but again, could have been a function of working nights. I also was very queasy all weekend, to the point where Pat made breakfast Saturday morning and I had to leave the room because the smell of his delicious looking dropped-egg-on-toast made me gag. I was scared to believe I could be pregnant, because I had taken two home pregnancy tests, and both were negative. About two months ago, I was sick with a sinus infection and paid a visit to my primary care. Apparently they scheduled a follow up visit for this morning, which I knew nothing about until they called on Friday and left me a message. By the time I got the message, it was too late to call and cancel the appointment (they charge you if cancel less than 24 hours before the scheduled appointment). So, I worked last night and headed straight to the appointment. The NP was awesome, I think she was almost as excited as I was – most of the patients in the office are elderly, so I think it was fun for her! She ordered the blood work stat, and two hours later, she called and left me a message saying that she had good news and I should call her back. I was sleeping and called her back at 1:09 this afternoon. That’s when I got the good news!! According to Naegle’s rule, mini marr is due to arrive on May 18!! Telling Pat was awesome. I couldn’t do it on the phone, so I waited until he got home from work. We were in the office saying hello, he gave me a big hug and squeeze and I said be careful, you don’t want to hurt the baby. He just looked at me, like yeah right. And then I started crying, so he knew it was real! It still doesn’t feel real and we just kinda kept looking at each other like, seriously? We’re having a baby? But we are!

YEAH!

Bar Harbor

Pat and I just returned from five glorious days in Bar Harbor, Maine. We kicked off the week taking a trip down memory lane and stayed at the hotel where we got married last year. It was pretty neat to be there one year later, and we had fun recapping our memories of the night … I still cannot believe it’s been a year! Who would have thought that one year later we’d be the proud parents of Miss B and the expectant parents of minimarr!

Tuesday morning we trekked up to Maine. The ride was just under 6 hours, but through pouring rain almost the whole time. Not fun. Pat did all the driving (he’s so good) and we were there safe and sound by dark. The inn was perfect so we settled in and then headed to dinner. The package we booked included three dinners at the Bar Harbor Inn which was incredible. Fancier than we anticipated (the book at our hotel said no jeans. Of course, we brought jeans only). We decided that since it was off season we’d risk it, and luckily it wasn’t a problem! Our only other option would have been to buy “dressy” clothes at Walmart. I’m glad it didn’t come to that!

Our main focus of the trip was to visit Acadia National Park. It was pretty amazing. We decided to do a self guided tour, so bought a CD and set out to explore the park. We managed to spend two days there, so I’m glad we didn’t pay for the two-hour tour! One of our favorite spots was called Bubble Rock. It’s basically a huge boulder left by a glacier thousands of years ago that balances on the edge of a mountain.

We decided it was worth hiking up to, and it definitely was! Here’s a picture of Pat pushing it off the mountain. Despite the fact that we were told it’s been there for thousands of years and never budged, I was convinced it would fall when Pat touched it, haha!

Luckily, it didn’t budge! Friday morning was set to be sunny, so we watched the sunrise on Cadillac Mountain. From October 7-March 20, it’s the first place in the United States to see the sunrise! We felt pretty special. It was cold watching it rise, but from the summit of Cadillac Mountain we could see fishing boats in the water, and figured they were way colder than we were!

We capped off our trip with some shopping in downtown Bar Harbor. It’s an adorable little town, with all sorts of boutiques and shops. A lot of places were closed for the season, but there was still a pretty good selection of stores open. Our favorite was Bark Harbor, where we bought some treats for our baby, who no doubt missed us terribly while we were gone 🙂

Saturday morning we headed home, with a stop at my parents to pick up Bailey and have dinner. Binkie came, and Kris was home for the weekend, so we had a great time. Lots of laughs (per usual) and just a nice relaxing family dinner! The poor dogs were tired, but still managed to get some scraps. On Saturday alone, B went to the park with my mom, for a run with my sister, and then to the golf course with my dad, Pat and I. Needless to say, she was exhausted. I have never seen her so tired in my life. It was awesome! Her new bed from LL Bean had come while we were gone (she ate the first one, but you gotta love LL Bean; we sent them the old one, and they shipped out a new one at no extra charge. You can’t beat it!), so we got that all ready for her, and she slept like a baby. It was pretty funny. All in all, it was a great week and we’ll both be sad to return to work on Wednesday!