Our Baby has a Name!

Brad & I have been looking for a name for this fetus for half of a pregnancy already (that's right, I'm over halfway there already). Now, we were going to name it Zaggy Moondirt - but then when Dan & Caryn told us their fetus name was Ziggy Stardust, we figured that name was out...

So, we kept coming up with names, and they just wouldn't stick. I personally liked Bob for quite some time, but Brad said it wasn't asexual enough...picky picky...

So, a few weeks ago we were talking about cellphones - and Brad told me that there were areas in Africa where cells have become so prevalent that people don't have house numbers on their houses anymore, they have cell numbers, so when you get there, you can call them to let them know you're there. Then he said that whole idea is quite different from the years when people didn't even have doors on their houses, so people would call "go-go-go-yi" (go yee) which meant "knock knock" to let people know they were there. I thought Go-yi would be a fun name for the baby, since right around the time we had the conversation, I was also feeling Go-yi move and kick for the first time. So we tried it out for a while, to make sure it stuck, and it has.

So...we'd like to introduce our fetus to you all. It's name is Go-yi and it's moving and kicking and knocking on my belly every day now, which is kinda fun, and kinda weird. In less then 5 months Go-yi should be ready to meet the world. AUGHHHHH!!!

The Life of a Photographer's Assistant

Brad's been doing a lot of work with his friend Greg taking pictures this holiday season. Greg's got a company that does things like Santa Claus at the mall & corporate gig's where you can get your photo taken on the company's dime. It's been very cool for him, he comes home with some interesting stories, and gets paid to take pictures that are a whole lot less pressure to take than wedding pictures are (given it's a full day event, and if your pictures don't turn out it's not a good thing...not that our pictures have ever NOT turned out, but still...it's a lot of stress). SO...this has been a lot of fun for him, and it's been good for him to hang out with Greg & the other photographers and assistants who work on these jobs.

This week Brad worked Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and has another gig on Sunday. I hope this means I'm going to get a nice Christmas present (ha ha ha). It's a pretty neat set-up Greg's got. Brad takes the pictures on a digital camera that connects directly to a laptop. From there someone processes them (crops them, puts on the company logo and a border or something like that) and then they print it right to a printer that's there, and within 2 minutes from the time you got your photo taken, you've got a picture in hand in a nice little booklet. Pretty cool.

Well, one of the computer technicians is moving to Edmonton, and I expressed a willingness to help out - a little extra cash for me would be nice too, and if I don't help, then I don't see Brad for many MANY nights. So, Greg said he'd be up for that, so on Tuesday we went to a swanky (and I mean SWANKY) party at an exclusive club (if you're not a ka-gillionaire, don't bother trying to be a member) and I learned how to crop, edit and print pictures from Tim. Last night, I was on my own, and for 6 hours Brad took pictures & I printed them for people at a nice hotel in Vancouver.

A few things I (and Brad at times) discovered:
Rich people are just the same as everyone else - it's us poor people who put them on a pedestal and they probably couldn't care less about it (especially when you're a ka-gillionaire).
We work well together - communicating well, talking to the clients in a similar way - keeping each other informed about what's going on.
Drunk people say "I love you" more than non-drunk people.
Having a stomach bug (or food poisoning, I'm not sure which), and being pregnant is NOT a nice combo when processing pictures for 6 hours. I think I lost 90% of my body's water last night one way or the other, and I felt what felt like contractions (I don't think the baby likes me having a bug). I did it, and it was manageable (mostly), but I sure didn't eat anything, and called the nurse's hotline when I got home. BOY was I relieved when she told me that kind of reaction is NOT part of a normal pregnancy - I sure wouldn't want to experience it more than once!!! She gave me some good advice, and I'm feeling somewhat better this morning, which is nice.

One of the coolest things about the evening, though, was at the end when we were cleaning up. We chatted with Greg and he said that I was incredible (worth a million dollars was one of the phrases he used) and that he'd never seen someone pick this stuff up so quickly, or be so capable within an evening. He really appreciated that he didn't have to come over and problem solve all night long, but that I could figure things out and make it happen. That felt good to me. And when we asked him how much I should be making the invoice out for, he said "Normally for someone starting out, I pay $**, but since you're so great already, you can bill what I'd charge someone who's been doing this for a while ($10 more than the previous number!!). I said to Brad later that I got a raise before I even started working! I was pretty excited about that, and Brad was pretty proud of me. And if I can do that well as I leave my post to throw up and I look like a ghost - imagine how great I'll be next time! (And Greg has said he'd like there to be a next time, which is cool).

I'm glad this is still something that's mostly Brad's gig, but it's fun, from time to time to help out and be a part of things.

Love to you all.

We heard a heartbeat!!!

It was pretty strong - and kinda cool. It's weird to think that there's a little something growing inside of me (many people my age who grew up with the movie "Alien" where something comes out of Sigourney Weaver's belly and tries to bite her can relate). My imagination gets to me sometimes...

We heard the heartbeat on Monday - which was good. The last TWO times we went to the doctor he couldn't find it (at 12 weeks and 14 weeks) so when we got there for our last check-up at 16 weeks, we were glad to finally hear a SUPER strong heartbeat - I guess our baby was just hiding & playing games, but now it's too big to do that anymore!

Speaking of too big - it's about 6 inches now (that's 15 cm for you metric types) - sometimes I hold my fingers that wide apart on my belly and think "How can something that big be in there, and I can't feel it yet?" And then I realize that for many months my sleep will be interrupted by feeling it move, and I realize I can't complain.

When we were listening to the heartbeat the doctor said "can you hear that...it's going "it's a boy, it's a boy, it's a boy", Brad, of course had to correct him and tell him it's a girl, but we'll see who's right in the end. Guessing games are fun, and I'm glad we don't know - it makes it more fun this way in my opinion.

I'm still just DEB...

It was a tough week to be telling everyone we're expecting, because I've been so busy with OTHER things at the same time that it's been hard for me to be excited about stuff (I don't know how excited I'll be, after all, there's a whole lot of responsibility involved with a baby...) ANYWAY, it's becoming apparent that being pregnant and people knowing means a whole lot of things that I wasn't hoping it would mean. Here's just a FEW examples from the last week:
*Being called mom or my personal non-favourite "Preggers" rather than Deb. Suddenly I have completely lost my identity.
*The entire span of my conversations with most people go from "so how far along are you" to "when I gave birth..." and that's about it.
*On the opening night of my play (which I spent hours and months on - based entirely on my skills in theatre and directing) what gets announced to the entire audience? That I'm pregnant. Oh yeah...I wasn't asked beforehand...
*"Are you sure that's good for the baby?" A question I heard from someone who's basically a stranger...how is this your business? Are you really calling me a bad mother?? (If I'm to pull it to the extreme)
*Belly touching...from aquaintances...men...people invading my personal space just to touch my belly, even though at this point, my baby is so LOW down that if someone ACTUALLY wanted to pat my baby I could sue them for sexual harassment.
*Suddenly there's a whole lot of personal space and personal questions that people feel they can ask just because I'm going to give birth to our child (and it has no connection with those people who are invading).

What do I like? That Brad & I are finally both able to accept the fact that we're pregnant. That we can talk about the baby and it's a good thing. That I can look at pictures of the ultrasound and know that little baby's ours (I also love it when people tell me the picture looks like me...and I say it looks like his father, of COURSE). That although I'm tired & feeling just weird, there's still the knowledge that this pregnancy seems to be working, and that's a great thing. God is good, even when people are insensitive.

We're Getting a BABY!!!

YAY! We're so excited to be able to share this with you guys finally! It's been a long three months, but at the same time, we're glad to be able to share good news with you guys this time around. We felt so hesitant to say anything until we saw that little baby on the ultrasound, and saw it's little heart beat and saw it's mouth open and close and it's arms & legs move around. What a cool feeling to know that that little baby is a part of our family already. It's funny, both Brad & I have commented that seeing the ultrasound was odd because the baby was moving and when you see the pictures (as we'll post soon), they're static, but when you're there, you see it moving around - and then knowing that that little moving flailing thing is growing inside me is another odd thing to think about.
What we're working on now: A fetus name we can both agree with - it's taking a while.

On another note: Final dress rehearsals for Anne of Green Gables this week (if you're in the area, come and watch!), pray for strength for me to get through this week without collapsing from exhaustion, remember that post in August about "and if I'm pregnant, it's like God throwing a chainsaw into the mix of stuff I'm juggling"...well, he did it - and He's given me the strength to survive, but MAN am I tired!

I just threw up for the first time!!

At 11 weeks and 5 days along. Most people are OVER morning sickness by then and I'm just starting.

I threw away some milk that had gone bad in the fridge, and the smell just put me over the edge. I've smelled bad things that have made me come close before, but this was the first time that I've actually puked. Thankfully it was BEFORE I'd eaten breakfast, so there wasn't a whole lot there to get rid of.

I went back to the bedroom and Brad said "Well, now you're definately pregnant". We're going for an ultrasound soon, we were at the doctor yesterday and he couldn't find a heartbeat (which is common at 11 weeks), but it was still a little nerve wracking. SO, hopefully soon we'll have something to show you that will make it official enough that we'll have something to tell you! We're still just waiting and waiting and waiting.

Different kinds of difficult...

As I read about my sister-in-law Caryn's pregnancy journey, and feel really bad about her morning sickness, and other infections and problems and such, there's a part of me that feels like she's kind of lucky. All that stuff is a result of her body responding to the hormones that are coursing through her body. I have the same hormones, but they don't cause the same reactions - which is kinda scary. A little bit of morning sickness lets you know that the baby's really growing - that it's really part of you and changing things in you. For me, the lack of morning sickness is causing a different kind of a difficult pregnancy, I'm constantly questioning whether or not I'm actually pregnant, whether or not this baby's going to stick around - and although I'm not PHYSICALLY finding this pregnancy difficult - I'm mentally and emotionally having all kinds of games being played, and that's tough. There's a lot of fear and uncertainty, and there's a part of me that would just feel a little bit of relief if I just threw up once or twice.

NOT that I want to be physically sick (or could handle it with my schedule being what it is), so in a way, it's like God is taking care and not giving me more than I could handle - but it does make me wonder about how secure Maybe.it is - and that's scary.

That is why we're waiting to tell all you guys - even though I really want to. Thursday is 10 weeks - and I'll feel MUCH better once I pass that milestone (it was the day of the beginning of week 10 that we lost Stretch). I want to hear a heartbeat before I start making phone calls. But then other days, I just want to post all these blogs and be done with it!

This is difficult - in a whole different way than morning sickness would be.

I just went shopping...

And bought a bunch of maternity clothes. How weird! I figure part of embracing the fact that I'm pregnant is taking steps to accept it, rather than spending all of my time pretending nothing is different. Things are different than last time, although I'm still not puking (which in some ways would be a relief). I have been feeling less stable in the stomach area - and my mom never really had morning sickness, and Rebecca didn't have much with most of her kids, so maybe it's just not a common O-hand trait - and since I so seldom throw up anyway, perhaps it's ok. There's other things that have made me feel a little more confident, but until I hear a heartbeat - I'm not making any promises that I'm all gung ho. ANYWAY - I went shopping, and rather than feel fat in a regular store where nothing fits like it used to - I went to a maternity store and bought stuff that could be confused for regular clothes anyway, and rather than feeling like a very large woman who just keeps putting on weight, I felt very slim in maternity clothes. What a nice feeling.

So...I don't need them, and I SURE hope no tags stick out and people find out - but I sure like my new clothes and I'm glad to have a few investment pieces - that hopefully have to last me for the next 7 months. This HAS helped my excitement build, which has been a nice change from some of the other feelings I've been having.

Gotta go find food - I'm STARVING!

Miscarriages mess you up...

It's weird this time around in the pregnancy, because rather than thinking about the future, rather than thinking about buying maternity clothes, and stuff for a baby, and furniture and setting up a college trust fund (ha ha... ha...), I'm just thinking: I hope I don't lose this baby. It makes everything much more immediate, and it's a little weird. What's going to happen when the baby IS fine, and all of a sudden Brad and I have to take it home, and we realize we have no car-seat or place for the baby to sleep because we had such a tenuous hold on the reality of it all that we're still scared to commit to being parents. Who knows how long it's going to take me to get over this feeling and start to ANTICIPATE things, the closest I get is anticipating perhaps losing it, and on a positive note, anticiapting a trip to the doctor where we can hear the heartbeat. I think once I hear a heartbeat I MAY be able to be a little more excited, but I don't know. That's why we've been calling the baby Maybe-it so far. It works, maybe-it's a boy, maybe-it's a girl, maybe-it's smart and beautiful etc. It does still work, but the real reason we came up with the name was "Maybe-it"'s actually a baby this time. Maybe-it will live...but we're still living in the land of the maybe-it's and it's a hard place to live, hoping for the time when Maybe-it won't be an appropriate name anymore.

At the same time - none of us know our maybe-it's. None of us know when we'll live & when we'll die. When we marry someone, it's on a maybe-it. Who knows where life will take you, a former student of mine (all of 20 or so) is married to a guy diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphona. I bet she wasn't thinking of dealing with cancer in the first year when she said "in sickness and in health". Life and death are sobering thoughts - hard ones to deal with, and having dealt with them the first time around, they're much more strongly in my head this time around...and therefore - Maybe-it is in our lives for the time being - and it's only up to God how long he or she will be there...

By the way, did I mention...

I'm having a baby. I know I can't just tell you all yet, even though part of me really wants to, part of me is enjoying this whole keeping it on the inside with just me and Brad sharing and SLOWLY discovering just a little bit of excitement along the way as we continue to wait and hope and fear. Every time I cramp, I worry, every time I feel like puking, I'm relieved, but we still can't do much, beyond wait and hope and pray, so that's what we're doing...

Just thought you'd like to know (eventually) where we're at....

Hoping and Praying...

Well, we're now in the hoping and praying category. Things have been going better for me this time around than last time, I'm "feeling" a little more sick and squishy (but is that because of the pregnancy, or because of hoping that I'm feeling it?) and there's been way less spotting (which I KNOW is a good sign), but there's still this part of me that finds this hard to believe and hard to hope for. I have to keep reminding myself that it's ok to get hurt, and it's better to hope and love and anticipate than to be cynical and closed off and then regret things if this baby does go and I've never had a chance to love it.

At the same time, we desperately want to tell some people so we have people praying for us, but we're also a little more hesitant to share our news - it's not news that ONLY full of excitement, there's a very big lining of fear this time around. Yes, we were aware of what COULD happen last time, but all of our nievity is gone now, and the fear remains.

We do know that God is in control and that he will take care of both us and our little one, BUT that doesn't make this the easiest journey to go on, regardless. God knows what He's doing, and I don't doubt that, but He hasn't let us know, and THAT is where the fear comes in. So...when you read this, start hoping and praying, but don't feel bad if there's a little bit more fear and a little bit less excitement than there was the last time...

Oh...You'll Just Know...

Well, it's funny to me that so many people have told me that once I get pregnant again "You'll just know that you're pregnant" after all - they did. I know people who woke up the next day and "KNEW", people who had a pregnancy test sitting on their kitchen table for a week and a half before any results could show up.

Well - I didn't know - not at ALL. Looking back, I can see that I was probably over emotional last month, I can probably see that the weight loss was WAY easier than it normally is, and that I missed my mom a LOT, but at the time, I couldn't figure out why all this was happening - and certainly didn't chalk it up to being pregnant because I didn't FEEL pregnant - and I just didn't "KNOW", like they all said I would. SO - that being said - when I was late, I certainly didn't have a test sitting on my kitchen table waiting, I was a little scared to take it right away and trust that I was even after that point. Three days later, after a LONG wait (the last time the positive result showed up almost immediately), I found out for sure.

How are we feeling about things this time around? A LOT more apprehensive. Hoping for a LITTLE morning sickness, to confirm that there's hormones abounding, but at the same time, not a TON of it because, like you can see in my other posts, I'm slightly too busy for a LOT of it. We're hopeful, but tentative. It's a LOT harder for me to connect with this little one, in a way, and yet, in another way, it feels like things will be OK (and that's God letting me know that - whatever happens, things WILL be ok). Am I thinking about the lifelong responsibilities? Nope - I'm just aiming to make it beyond 10 weeks - after that, I'll look at the rest of the kid's life.

So - YAY....and....oh no...all over again.