7 weeks

Today I'm (approximately) 7 weeks and 2 days. By my calculations, anyway. Until I get an ultrasound, we won't have any exact dates, but we expect to be due about the second week in September.

Yes, that means I will be 7 to 9 months pregnant in the hottest of the Phoenix heat. But didn't we all know that would happen?

Anyway. I'm not showing at all yet, although I am super-duper bloated. I figured I'd start the side-view pictures early so we can see how I progress:


The fatigue I've been feeling for weeks is still persistent. Every woman I know who has been pregnant has assured me that this will last throughout my first trimester, but after that, my energy should return. I'm still trying to exercise when I can, although the exhaustion has me passed out on the couch more than jogging on the elliptical.

I've started having some cravings, and although they're not too weird, they do seem to be food that I ate a lot as a kid but don't eat as much anymore. The first craving I had was for cheese. Orange cheese, in fact. Sharp cheddar, if possible. The craving hit me like a truck, and left me rummaging around the office refrigerator, hoping someone had recently brought in cheese. No such luck, so I had to stop at the store on the way home to buy sharp cheddar cheese sticks. And then I ate one in my car, in the parking lot. And managed to keep myself from eating the whole bag. Now THAT'S willpower.

Next up: pickles. Big, whole pickles. It's been about 8 or 9 days, and I'm on my second huge jar of those.

Then, ramen noodles. After that, BLT sandwiches (with turkey bacon, of course). Last night, vanilla ice cream (I am a chocolate person; I am NOT a vanilla person). So far, I don't seem to have any strong food aversions, although things that I used to love (coffee, beer and wine, in particular) sound pretty gross to me. Even chocolate doesn't hold the unending appeal it once did.

Other than the constant exhaustion, some difficulty sleeping, and the nausea that keeps coming and going, I feel pretty decent. I'm actually grateful for these symptoms, particularly the nausea, because as much as it sucks, it is a good sign of a healthy pregnancy (I repeat this to myself as necessary).

And here is something shocking (to me, at least): This week our baby has double in size from last week and is now about the size of a raspberry. He/she is growing arms and legs, eyelids, a nose and lips. Bless his/her little heart (which is now beating about twice as fast as mine does)!

Telling the fam-jam

We originally wanted to wait until I was about 6 weeks along before telling our families, but my mother-in-law's birthday happened to fall right at about our 5th week mark, and we just couldn't resist "giving her" a grandchild for her birthday.

We knew we wanted to tell my parents the same day as we told my in-laws, so I called my mom the day before to set the groundwork. I needed an excuse to call them on the web cam the next night, which would be tricky since we just "saw" them on the web cam a couple of weeks earlier for Christmas.

I talked to my mom for a solid half hour and was practically at work when I finally mentioned that we wanted to call Mike's mom for her birthday, but that the last time we'd spoken to them on Skype, we'd had technical difficulties. We wanted to make sure the problem wasn't on our end before we called his parents, so would it be ok if we called my mom and dad first to make sure our system was working ok?

There was a long pause and then my mom slowly said, "Meghan, you're not pregnant are you?!"

My response: "Uhhhhh... hahaha... ummmm.... hahahaha...."

"Meghan?! Are you?!"

Well, it's just not something I want to lie about, so I confirmed her suspicions. Evidently, I had told her about the tactic my friend Kristin used to get ME on Skype just a few weeks earlier, when she told me that SHE was pregnant. I still maintain the stories were very different, but apparently she saw through me anyway. Whoops.

So with my mom now dying to tell my dad, I called them later that night, pretending that Mike and I had bought a new computer and wanted to check out the new web cam. My dad got on the computer, answered our call and said, "If you got a new computer, then why does the picture still look like crap?"

"Oh, that's cuz we didn't get a new computer."

*Blank stare from Dad*

"Actually, I'm pregnant."

He was excited (and shocked to learn that he'd be a grandfather for a FOURTH time before he turns 50). :)

The next day, we called Mike's parents as planned, and let his mom open her birthday gifts. We chatted for a while, and then Mike told his mom that we actually had one more gift for her. "What? Another gift?!" she exclaimed. Well, yes, but it's not in PA, Mike explained. It's actually here... and she'll have to come visit to see it... cuz we're pregnant!

There was much cheering and laughing (and perhaps a bit of crying). Then, of course, they started debating what they should be called. Grandma? Nana? Grandpa? Pop-pop? It's an important decision.

Over the weekend we told the rest of our immediate families: We called Nana on speaker phone, and told Mike's sister, Erica, over Skype. We got to Skype my whole family (grandparents, brother, sister-in-law and nieces) at the same time, while they were celebrating my grandfather's birthday, and told everyone at once. (I think the best part was seeing my three-year-old niece clapping excitedly.)

During the next couple of weeks, we told a handful of others close to us. We're going to wait until the end of the first trimester before we tell our extended families, co-workers and the rest of our friends. I can't wait until everyone knows and I don't have to feel like I'm living a double life anymore! :)

Celebrating in Prescott

Finding out you're having a baby on New Year's Eve puts a totally different spin on the night, especially for two people who enjoy their beer and wine. Luckily, we happened to have a bottle of sparkling cider in the pantry that we had recently debated tossing out (cuz, you know, when are we EVER going to drink sparkling cider?!).

When we got to our hotel in Prescott, the first thing we did was crack that bottle open and toast to our expanding family with plastic hotel cups (this is about as classy as we get, folks).


Then we got dressed and hit the town. We'd never really spent any time in Prescott, so we were excited to walk around a bit and check it out.


We headed to the Prescott Brewery for dinner, where Mike ordered a brewski and I ordered a root beer.

That's when the never-ending questioning of everything I put into my mouth began. I thought I was so smart for ordering root beer... but wait... does root beer have caffeine in it?! I'd already had two cups of coffee that morning, before I knew there was a reason not to, so what if I'm now consuming even more?! I drank about half of the root beer, but I didn't really enjoy it because I worried about caffeine with each sip I took.

Mike and I tried to brainstorm non-alcoholic drinks I could order at the saloons. But I'd had very little time to research this stuff before we left home, and I just wasn't sure what was safe and what wasn't. And I couldn't ask any friends or family because asking would pretty much give our secret away.

So I decided water was the safest bet.

After dinner, we headed to a saloon right next to our hotel and grabbed some stools at the bar. The quite gruff-looking bartender did not seem pleased with my order of water, and only tolerated us sitting there because Mike ordered a whiskey and ginger ale. About halfway through the drink, Mike declared that he "just isn't that into this right now." I tried to assure him that I was completely fine just hanging out with my water, and that I'm perfectly capable of having fun anyway. But all we could really think about was how our lives were changing and what a huge thing was happening to us. So we decided to call it an early evening, and headed back to our hotel room to cuddle, take a nap, and wait for the new year and our new beginning.


The rest of the trip was great. We ate tons of good food, drank some amazing hot chocolate, and did a bit of shopping. During meals, we brainstormed baby names and wondered what on Earth to do with all the furniture in the den... er, baby's room.

I think it's safe to say it's a New Year's we'll never forget.

The results are in...

... and they're positive!

We're having a baby. Even though it's been a few weeks since we found, I still can't wrap my brain around it.

I've been meaning to start up some sort of diary/blog/journal about the pregnancy practically since we found out. But, well, I've just been too tired. Driving home from work, changing into sweatpants and grabbing my Slanket from the closet is about all I can handle by the end of the day. But I will prevail!

Hopefully this blog will serve as a way to keep our families feeling connected to our pregnancy, given that we're so far from all of you. It will also be a good way to chronicle (hence the name) our first foray into parenthood, and will be something I hope we can look back on and laugh at years from now.

First of all: The story of finding out.

We'd actually only been trying to get pregnant for a couple of months and didn't expect it to happen so soon. But several days after Christmas, I started feeling different. I don't know how to pinpoint it exactly, but I just felt off. I took a pregnancy test on Dec. 30, and it was negative.

I told Mike how surprised I was. For some reason, my instinct had told me it was going to be positive. Some instinct! He said that strangely enough, he'd felt the same thing. He'd really had a good feeling about it. Oh well, we said. It's another month to save money. There's always next month! Plus, we had plans to drive up to Prescott for New Year's Eve, and there were tons of saloons on Whiskey Row with our names on them! Now we could live it up.

Mike had to work on New Year's Eve, but I was off, so it was my job to make sure we were all packed up and ready to hit the road for Prescott as soon as he got home. I took my time, working out, eating lunch, showering, packing. Around lunchtime, I was getting ready to head out to finish up a couple of errands and on a whim, decided to take a pregnancy test again. The box I bought had two tests, after all, and I thought maybe I'd better make absolutely SURE before I went up to Prescott and downed my share of celebratory drinks.

I stood in the bathroom, filing my nails as I waited for the results (always the multi-tasker). When I was done filing, I glanced at the test, expecting the "Not Pregnant" message again. Instead, I saw "Pregnant."

Every bit of air left my body in that instant. It was the same feeling I had when Mike proposed -- a bubble of complete surreality in the midst of an otherwise entirely ordinary day. The feeling that you just turned a huge life corner without even realizing the road was about to swerve.

And it was THREE AND A HALF HOURS before Mike was going to get home from work. How could I live with this knowledge on my own for three hours?! I got in my brand new CR-V, suddenly very grateful to have a safer, sturdier car. And I drove more cautiously than I ever have, running my ridiculously mundane errands. (Who wants to fill up their gas tank and visit the ATM when they just found out they're pregnant?!)

I still had THREE HOURS to kill, so I headed to the mall. Specifically, the sports stores in the mall, where I have often noticed adorable baby items adorned with various sport team emblems. The first store I came upon had a Cleveland Browns pacifier but nothing Eagles. A sign, perhaps, that our baby would be a Browns fan more than an Philadelphia Eagles fan?! I can only hope. So I bought the pacifier but I thought, out of fairness, that I ought to check the other sports store, too.

Indeed, I found an Eagles bib at that store. I guess the jury is still out on this one.

I came home, put the items (still in the bag) on the kitchen table, and waited another excruciating TWO HOURS for Mike to get home.

When he finally did, I asked him how his day was. He grumbled that it was long, and he had wished he could leave earlier, and he was ready to just hit the road and start our New Year's celebration.

I told him we were all packed and ready to go, but that first, I had killed some time at the mall earlier, and bought him a present. He seemed excited about that, and opened the bag, first pulling out the bib.

"Ohhhh, nice," he said, looking at me with a slightly confused look on his face (as though to say, "Why are you buying bibs when you're not pregnant?").

"Well, since our baby will be born right before football season, I figured we ought to start stockpiling the paraphernalia now."

There was a pause as he took that in, starting at the bib in his hands and the pacifier in the bag, and then he blurted out, "What are you saying?!?" (He says he doesn't even remember saying that, ha!)

I told him I was pregnant, showed him the shockingly clear pregnancy test that proved it, and there was much hugging and general excitement.

Here's a picture I took while I was killing time at home alone:


Just a few minutes later, we left on our road trip, now ready to celebrate something much more exciting than the beginning of a new year. Now we were celebrating the beginning of a new life.