World-Traveling Baby!

We're trying to get a head start on acclimating our baby to traveling, so here we are in Mexico! Libby has a conference in Cancún (rough, eh?) so we're here, enjoying ourselves. The conference starts this evening, but we got here a few days early, and you know what our baby has already enjoyed?

• a day at the beach
• seeing one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World
• lots of adventures
• learning lots of Spanish (his/her first word may very well be hola)
• the art of bargaining
• unfortunately, more than our fair share of rain
• some cryptic email to the grandparents about lots of stout, aha!
• delicious fresh fish tacos

Sorry there aren't any pictures of these adventures, yet, but we didn't anticipate any computer access, and thus, did not bring the correct cables. The conference center, though, has a room of computers just for people in attendance! How thoughtful! Anyhow, the baby's enjoying the Mexican heat, especially since he/she is well protected from any rain that may be falling.

Differing Perspectives

My view:

Placenta's view:

Becoming more real...

When we first found out that we were pregnant, life wasn't too different. Sure it was exciting to (at first) have a secret and (later) to begin revealing it, but otherwise, it was just pee on a stick... and then blood at the doctor's office.

Granted, for Libby, things changed dramatically a long time ago. Nausea... unusual cravings (even if she didn't realize that they were unusual)... unbelievable fatigue. But for me, things didn't change all that dramatically - other than trying to keep Libby comfy and happy. But we're at 17 weeks and 5 days now, and there are physical signs to verify what's going on. I can feel her uterus (way bigger than normal non-pregnant size). And she's actually starting to show! It's more and more real by the day, and that's super exciting.

It makes it a lot easier for me to get excited about looking at jogging strollers at Babies 'R Us, when it's a more real feeling. When I can almost picture myself pushing a little guy or girl around in it. How fun! Even considering different diaper options is more... well, I won't go too far with it, but it's more tolerable now than previously.

And of course, there's the name selecting process. It had always been superficial joking before, but they're becoming more and more serious. That's fun. Although, the Oliver Ignatius Aloysius Peter Egle seems to come up less often. (Sorry, Great Grandfather Egle. Hope you understand.)

Two of my chief residents recently had babies... well, their wives did. They both are extremely excited. For one, it's his first child, and he says, "Now, I have an even better reason to rush home at night." The other already had a few sons but he had his first daughter. He reports dutifully that she is already astoundingly spoiled. Hearing their experience makes me excited, both for them and for what lies ahead for us. Both tell me that they look forward way more to their call now than ever before because they get more sleep on-call at the hospital than they do at home at night. And since I'm writing this on-call, I should probably stop now. I might as well take advantage of a little time to rest, since that seems to be the thing to do.

Revelations

It's been fun telling people the news. We're out-of-the-closet, now. People know. The big revelation came a few weeks ago when the parents were around. Libby's parents were stopping on their way out to Boston for a dental conference, and that was the perfect excuse to propose a toast... to ourselves!

Nobody saw it coming. It was kind of fun. I take some pride in the fact that we had kept the secret so well. I'm proud of Libby, too. She had spent an ENTIRE day with her parents before we had a dinner with both sets of parents and my brother and his wife to annouce things... and she didn't crack! (Even though I'm sure she wanted to.)

(Quick side story: the next day, we went to the Henry Ford Museum with Libby's parents. For lunch, we went to their cafe, and there was a sign boasting about their nutricious menu options. Libby was admiring their not-so-nutricious ice cream options and telling us about how they sounded good when her mother decided to read the nutricious sign aloud: "Your waistline is history!" Libby's reaction was too good to be appropriately described here. "WHAT?!?!?!" A combination of shock, hurt, and indignity.)

Over the following few weeks, we've let the news leak to lots of other people. It's been fun as I've gotten to gradually tell people in my residency program. They're proud of my fertility.

One of Libby's fellow residents came up to me last week. She was one who had been pretending that we were pregnant all along, asking when we were due, etc. (For some reason, people have found that endlessly entertaining over the past few years.) Her reaction to me was, "See? I KNEW you were pregnant. That's why I've always come up to Libby and patted her belly, saying 'Hello, little one!' Your baby already knows me!"

It was also kinda fun to get a phone call from Bahrain, quite unexpectedly, while I was at the hospital. I didn't realize that Libby had told our friends there, so I was caught a little off-guard when I got the phone call. Off-guard, but still fun.

Another quick side-story: So, my brother and his wife are expecting, too. They told my Grandmother (the best grandmother in the whole world, just to put it in context for anyone who doesn't know her) by sending her a Valentine's day card. She immediately got on the horn and called everyone she knew to spread the word. Libby and I were on that list, not because she wanted to share the news, but because she wanted to share her excitement. By that point, Libby and I already knew that we were pregnant, but it was definitely still very much on the down-low. So, I get this phone call from my grandmother who starts immediately exclaiming excitedly about how it's time to celebrate and she's so happy, etc, and all I can think is "How the heck did she find out?! Libby must be telling lots of people!" It took me a few minutes to catch on that she was talking about my future niece/nephew... fortunately, I didn't give anything away in the meantime while I was figuring that out.

The next step in revelation... changing this blog from private, where it's only my ramblings to myself, to visible to the entire world!

Wagon Racing

I'm not sure why this post didn't get published awhile ago (it was written a about 6 weeks ago), but here it is now:

So, the Jonathan-Libby duo of the Great Wagon Race made a valiant effort. As background, Jonathan's parents have a mess in their garage. A BIG mess. I don't know how unusual that is, but what might be slightly unique is that among the mess is a wagon. It's a nice wagon that brings back fond memories for both Kevin and Jonathan from their childhood. The sides of the wagon are removable. The wagon is study. It's red. It's a fine piece of wagon-ness.

A number of years ago (at Thanksgiving, I think it was) out of the blue, Jonathan's mother declared a contest. I don't know that she intended to phrase it as a competition, but that's how it came out. She fixated on that glorious wagon among so many undiscovered treasures that lie buried in that garage, and she proclaimed that her son who was the first to produce a grandchild should become inheritor of... THE WAGON!

Now, as I mentioned, this was a number of years ago. Kevin and Laura were newlyweds. I don't even know if I'd met Libby, yet. Kevin and Laura have been married now for something like 34 years, and Libby and I are approaching the realm of "old married couple," so obviously this competition hasn't done much to spurn our interest in producing grandchildren for my parents. (I'm not sure if that's to my mother's dismay or relief.) But 2009-2010 has turned out to be the sprint to the finish line.

Part of Laura's gift to my brother this year for Christmas was a positive pregnancy test. He was quite giddy with that. And here Libby and I are, a little over a month later, with the same result. So, it looks like the cards have been dealt, and Libby and I will probably surrender claim to the wagon over to my brother and his wife... But I'd say we put in a valiant effort. One that warrants at least being able to borrow the wagon if we should happen to visit Kevin and Laura and Kevra (or whatever they choose to name their little one... Jonathan, perhaps?).

Fertile Ground

We hadn't tried conceiving very long at all before being successful. Not that I was surprised by that, or anything. I mean, after all, my guys are good swimmers, and I wouldn't expect anything less from them. It made me reflect on the time in our marriage before we were trying, though.

I remember having thought about all the effort that we had gone through to avoid pregnancy. I began thinking about all the effort that lots of people go through to avoid pregnancy. Sometimes people try really hard to avoid it, and next thing you know, Oops! I had wondered about the opposite, though... what if we had been trying really hard to avoid it, and then when we started trying, it had taken a really long time? What if all that effort was really in vain, and we hadn't really needed to try so hard to avoid it because it would be really hard to conceive?

But, that's neither here nor there. As I mentioned, my guys are good swimmers. And now that's a proven fact. Just for the record. It's even been proven AND confirmed, as Libby has taken another test, just to verify that she is, indeed, pregnant.

"Positive! So There!"

Alarm went off. And again. And again. And then Libby got out of bed, begrudgingly going to shower. It was a late night yesterday... well, not really late, but late by our standards, so we only got a little less than 6 hours of sleep. I was lucky enough to get to sleep for another twenty minutes or so, so I happily rolled over and started snoozing again.

Next thing I know, a dripping wet wife strides quickly into the room, no attempts made at being quiet, and triumphantly exclaims, "Positive! So there!" And that's how the adventure began.

You see, we just started trying to get pregnant. This was the first month, in fact, and Libby had eagerly already taken two pregnancy tests, even though it was just now about the time we were expecting her period. Both tests had been negative. She was convinced, though, that she was pregnant. I was a little less convinced, if nothing else, at least to temper enthusiasm until we had some actual evidence.

Libby was right, though, and she certainly let me know as she stormed into the room, dripping wet, gleefully giving me a kiss as I struggled to be awake enough to know what was going on. Even in my sleepy state, though, I could see the pure joy on her face.