First Doctor's Appointment, and Playing Catch-Up (8 Weeks)

Denine had her first prenatal check-up today, complete with our first first ultrasound image (pic to follow as soon as we can get it scanned).  I didn't expect to have the same surreal feeling at the first sight of my new child that I have in the past, what with this being a planned pregnancy and all, but I suppose the fact still remains:  seeing is believing.  Not that I didn't believe she was pregnant before, it's just more real (for me anyway) when I actually see the.....baby?  I guess embryo is technically correct at this point, but that just sounds so clinical.  Denine called him/her a peanut...

So, my last post promised an explanation of what's been going on for everyone that hasn't been in-the-know; I intended to do that sooner than now, but I spent all last week running a temperature for no apparent reason and didn't really feel like trying to be interesting at the time.  I'm all better now, so I guess it's time to make good on my promise.  Still not sure how interesting I feel.

We actually started this journey about 10 months ago; it didn't seem like that long until I sat down and realized it was about last October that we started talking about having more kids.  This was, naturally, shortly after we sold all of the old baby stuff we had been holding onto for the last five years "just in case."  Thanks, Murphy.  Anywho, after a time of prayerful deliberation we decided that we both felt the time was right to try for another child, which is something that honestly we have never agreed on before.  After that decision, Denine had to ween herself off of her medication, a three month process in itself.  Then we had to wait about a month after discontinuing birth control, per her doctor's request, before trying to get pregnant.  Luckily, actually getting pregnant didn't take that long.  Not that I have a problem with the process, mind (we're all adults here, right?), but by that point we were getting a little impatient; we spent longer on the process of getting pregnant than the actual pregnancy will take.

I can't speak for Denine, but the process involved in consciously deciding to have another child has been very strange for me.  Both of our children are "oops" babies; that may sound horrible, but it's the truth.  It doesn't mean I love them any less for it, but it is what it is, and what they are is unintended pregnancies (it occurs to me just now that the present tense is probably the correct way to phrase that:  they will perpetually be "unintended."  My, how I love the English language).  Having done it both ways, unintentionally and deliberately, I definitely recommend the latter, the stress level is much lower, at least assuming everything goes smoothly.  It is a distinctly different experience, to be sure, and a different kind of anticipation, probably because I didn't start the whole process with an end date in mind this time.

Thanks to everyone who has been along for the ride from the start, and everyone who has hopped on board since to support us.  I suppose the train never really stops, we'll just hit certain check points along the way.

I suppose here is where I make some bad pun about the ride of a lifetime...

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An End to Tongue-Biting, or Get That Cat Out of the Bag!

Well, it's official:  I'm a horrible blogger.  I think six months without a post definitely qualifies me as worst blogger ever.  Okay, probably not ever, somebody's bound to be worse.  But still, pretty bad.  In all fairness to myself, there has been a reason I haven't been posting.  You see, the most relevant goings on in my life for a while now have been related to something that I wasn't allowing myself to talk about in a public forum (although lots of you knew what was going on; thank you, by the way, for keeping mum).  Now the cat is out of the bag, however, and I can finally tell the world:  We are officially anticipating the birth of our third child in April!


Whew, that's a load off...

So, with that said, I fervently intend to do better about keeping up with this blog from here on.  I've also invited my lovely bride to join in authoring, so hopefully she will be adding her two cents worth through the coming months and beyond.  I'll post later to bring anyone who hasn't been privy to what's been going on "behind the scenes" with us for the past several months up to speed.