These are the first two ultrasound images we received to confirm that the pregnancy had taken and that the baby was in the right spot.

The first picture is the official ultrasound picture…the second is Troy doodling so that we had something to look at.

These three pictures were taken when I was nearly 11 weeks.  They were our first peek at the little bean that has been making me so sick!  The ultrasound technician was as excited as we were by how much the baby was moving around.  You can see a profile in the first picture, his/her little frog legs in the second (I hope he/she doesn’t turn out as bowlegged as daddy!) and in the third picture, you can see that bean is showing off their little foot.

Our next ultrasound will be a gender determination appointment.  We are both really excited for this as we want to be able to refer to baby as he or she and no longer “seseme”, “grape”, “kiwi”, “lemon”, etc…

So months and months and months ago, I was goofing around online and stumbled across a banner ad for M&M candies that you could personalize. I went to the website and checked it out. You could choose either 2 colors, or a variety pack of 3.
You had 2 lines for words, and 7 letters per line per M(&M).
I thought this would be a great way to announce to our parents that they were to be grandparents! I showed it to Troy, and he liked the idea. He wasn’t thrilled about the price, but decided to let sleeping dogs lie, and let me have my way on this one. I will admit they were a bit pricey, but you only get to announce the first grandchild one time!
We planned to order pink and blue M&M’s with the words: “We’re Pregnant” on one, and “Grandma Grandpa” on the other.
So, as you probably saw in my previous post, the morning I got my positive test, I told Troy to order up!

I however, couldn’t wait for the candies to tell my mom. She has been so much a part of this roller coaster  ride with us the past 18 months, that I was just bursting to tell her. I also knew, that being a woman, a mom, and a nurse, (who gave me the Magic Mojo shot) she knew exactly when I would be able to know something, and I didn’t want to lie to her. ( I did enough of that in high school. Sorry Mom) So Friday morning, as I was pulling out of the garage, I sent her a text message. I know, how very modern of me! It read. “Morning Grandma. Got a positive test, waiting on blood work, still a secret keep a lid on it.”
When I got to work I shot Troy an email saying I had texted Mom and was waiting on a response. To my surprise, he was mad at me for telling her with out him. When I did finally talk to mom, she was so excited, and she then told me the funniest story.

Back in good ‘ol 1976, when Mom first suspected she might be pregnant with me, she made an appointment at her doctors office to have blood drawn. They didn’t have the luxury of pee tests back then. She had the blood drawn on the way to work, and at her lunch break, she decided to call and see if the results were in. Due to the fact that Mom’s office is small, and it is impossible to make a private phone call there, she decided to walk to the nearest pay phone to call. She walked down to a pay phone, called the Doctor’s office. The office answered the phone and said

” Oh Mrs. McLaughlin, we have good news for you! Your blood test was positive. You are pregnant.”

Mom’s immediate response was …”Oh, okay.” and she hung up the phone and walked away. She got about a block away, before it all really dawned on her, and she spun around and ran back to the pay phone to call the office back. When they answered she could hear them all cracking up!

“We wondered how long it would take you to call us back!”
Fast forward to that fateful Friday morning, and she opens up her phone to read the text message, sees it and instantly slams the phone shut. A couple of beats pass and she thinks to herself, “oh God, I need to read that again!”
I laughed so hard when she told me that. 32 years later and she had the exact same reaction!

We ordered the M&M’s and it took until the next Wednesday to arrive. When they arrived, Troy was excited. (I knew he’d see it my way!) We decided to tell my Dad on Friday night. Dad had a great reaction. When we  gave him the bag, he looked down at it and just started grinning! Then he asked my mom if she had know and when she said yes, he said “I knew it! Jerk!” He proceeded to give her hard time for more than a week. Periodically calling her jerk.
You’ll remember I mentioned before that Troy was mad at me for not being able to wait to tell my mom.
Troy’s Mom and Step-dad were going to be passing through Columbus on Saturday on the way back from their vacation. Troy had it all planned to tell them at dinner. They arrived around 12:30 that afternoon, and as we were moving from the front door to the living room, I see Troy run upstairs. I knew exactly what he was doing. He came back down stairs and we exchanged glances, he just shrugged as if to say.. “what are you gonna do? I can’t help it”. He hands the bag of candies to Kathy and she is instantly squealing and hugging us both. I just laugh at Troy, and he says,”Okay, I can’t be mad at you  for not waiting anymore.”

The next pair who got the big news were Michael and Natalie. We met them out for dinner at CBC (Columbus Brewing Company). They were already seated when we arrived. When the waitress arrived, Troy ordered a drink, and I a water. We gave Michael and Natalie the M&M’s (modified to say Aunt and Uncle). At first they looked at the package and said ” oh Yum, M&M’s”

Natalie started to put them away in her purse, when she noticed the label on the bag declaring they were personalized.  She looked at them again, closely this time and started squealing. Michael looked at her as if she had lost her mind, and then took the package to look at himself. They were both very excited. Michael is especially looking forward to teaching our sweet baby to say a variety of odd ball phrases. Such not calling a door, a door but a portal. It isn’t a car, but a four wheeled combustion machine. He is so very strange.

A trip to Indiana was our next plan. We called and arranged to visit Ruth and Steve, and have a nice quite family dinner. With the WHOLE family. Not just Ruth and Steve, but the girls, their boyfriends, Ryan, and Uncle Bob and Aunt Rena to boot. I was sure that Ruth suspected something, but she swears she had no clue. Kristy on the other hand was right on top of things. She told Ruth she just knew we had an announcement to make, because we never come to visit in the spring. She was right on both accounts, however, we still have never visited in the spring, because our plans were derailed.

The week we had planned to go was when the morning sickness really took hold of me. Rather night sickness is a better term, add to it motion sickness. I had experienced several bad trips to and from work so being in the car was proving difficult. Still, we packed our bags, loaded up the car and headed out. We made it to Marysville. ( for those of you not familiar with the Columbus area, that is about 20 miles from home). Troy turned the car around and we headed home. I was really very upset that we were not going to get to make the trip. The more upset I got, the more sick I became.

Thankfully I have the most wonderful husband in the world and he really was not upset with me for not being able to make the trip. When we got home Troy called his dad and informed him that we had both good and bad news. The bad being that we were not coming, the good being the reason we were not coming was “his wife was too pregnant to make the trip”

Needless to say they were thrilled, and Kristy was very excited to know she had guessed correctly.  Troy packaged up their M&M’s and mailed them off.  Ruth and Steve then spread our news to the rest of the family that would attend dinner that night. We received many congratulatory phone calls that night and weekend.

Recently Ruth and Steve made the trek to C-bus to take us out to dinner to celebrate. It was wonderful to see them and get to talk the Baby talk with them.

Sharing with our friends trickled out slowly here and there. Most of my friends at work were among the first to know due to my sickness and lack of appetite and energy.  We are so excited that everyone has been so very happy and excited for us.

Troy keeps saying to me ” I can’t believe they are going to let us have a baby!” I am not sure who this mystical “they” is, but here we are and hopefully the Powers That Be will remain our our side as we make this journey.

April 4th we had the IUI procedure done with Dr. Williams at Ohio Reproductive Medicine. Our appointment was early that Saturday morning, and while it didn’t hurt, or even take very long, I ended up spending the rest of the afternoon and evening in bed with some uncomfortableness.  We had to wait two weeks post procedure before we could either A. expect a menstrual cycle, or B. take a home test. I have never in my life lived two longer weeks than those.
On Friday April 10th, I had blood drawn to check my progesterone level. In the past when we have had this done, we had to wait for the score to see if we’d even had a possible ovulation. In this case, because of the vaginal ultrasound (sorry boys) and the shot of Baby Making Mojo I took prior to the IUI, I knew I had ovulated. My score was 59. We were excited, but tried to maintain clam, as we had been burned by high progesterone scores in the past.
Thursday April 16th was day 27 in my cycle. I knew that I could take an early predictor test that day, but also knew it might be a tad early and register a false negative. So I decided to throw caution to the wind and take the test. I didn’t even tell Troy I was going to do it. When the test registered with a blue plus sign indicating a positive result I nearly passed out. When I collected my self, I walked into the other room, where Troy was checking his email, and said
” You’d better order those announcement M&M’s Daddy.”
He jumped out the chair and hugged me right away. He was so excited.
As I headed to work that day I was so excited, and still nervous at the same time. I called Dr. Williams office, and they told me to get blood drawn that night to confirm.
After work we went to Riverside, to the blood draw lab with which we have become all too familiar in the last 18 months.
The next morning Dr. Williams nurse Nancy, called me to tell me the results were in and we had a winner! My score was 68. They were looking for a score between 50 and 500 for this first draw.  She then informed me that she wanted the test to be repeated until my score was over 1000. The score is expected to roughly double every 48 hours. So at that rate I was in for 3 more blood draws.
My second result on Monday was 268, and my third on Thursday was 1018! I was super excited then because it meant that not only were we well on our way, but I also didn’t have to have that last blood draw. YEAH!
I used an online due date caluculator and determined that I am due on Christmas Day! We’ve already started talking about ways to make sure our poor Christmas baby still feel like they have a special birthday, that the day doesn’t get lost in the Christmas mess.

So what’s next? Sharring with the parents (now soon to be GRANDparents) as well as our siblings and a few close friends.
Because this time is still so precarious, we don’t want to shout it to the whole world, which is why if you are reading this blog post, you’ll notice I wrote it while things were fresh and new, but didn’t post it until we knew we were entering the “safety zone”
So, if we’ve seen you between April 16th and now, and have lied to you… sorry. You’ll just have to forgive us on this one.