A year has passed!

Well, now we're pregnant again!  We're expecting baby #2 in late February, so I was reminded that this blog is a nice way to keep track of the pregnancy.  I came back, and man, it's been a long time.

Q: Can you realistically cover an entire year in one blog post?
 A: No But we can post some photos that show how things have changed!

First bites of solid food (ew! rice cereal!)








Hang on a second. I just realized that TWO years have passed!! That definitely means we won't cover it all. Get ready for the fast-forward version...

Developed obsession with first (of many, many) singing toys from Mammaw & Pappaw.  This one sings some version of the Witch Doctor song and is a dog dressed like a pumpkin.  Ostensibly in the spirit of Halloween.

Got an adorable red satin and velvet fur-trimmed dress for holiday time.

Grew in teeth just in time to chew hands during holiday photos.

 Dressed up as Teen Wolf for Halloween.  Yes, we were in costume too -- as the dad and Stiles.

















Went to Thanksgiving parade here in Philly because we couldn't get it together to go to New York.

Saw the holiday lights at Wanamakers.

Left cookies for Santa!!

Opened xmas presents in pj's.

Turned two, and opened presents again!  A remote control truck! Thanks Pappaw!

Continued love of water fountains.

So that's that. I guess we're all up to date!  More to come soon!

It happens

It actually happened much more quickly than we thought. We tried twice last summer with no positive results. The first time we were absolutely sure it had taken (I guess that's a common feeling) and the second time there were so many other stressful things happening in our lives that it was pretty much statistically impossible. We decided to wait until spring and then we wanted to maximize the likelihood of a pregnancy as much as we could.

I quit drinking caffeinated beverages. I started taking Red Clover and Folic Acid supplements. I'd been doing this, and tracking my cycle since December, at least, so we decided to go for it in May.

It was Memorial Day weekend, and we knew we wanted to inseminate twice during the Window of Opportunity so we ordered two samples. The first one we did at home and the second we did at the doctor's office.

The first few days passed super-slowly as we waited. We weren't going to take a pregnancy test because we didn't want to jinx anything, but as the days became longer and longer we changed our minds, but the real proof actually came a few days before.

We were going to dinner at a Thai place, and I'd been having a little bit of spotting. I was all freaked out about it, and was convinced that I was going to start my period. We got to the parking lot of the restaurant and I started crying and going on about how I didn't know what I wanted for dinner, and that I needed a haircut! Cree looked at me and said, "um, I am pretty sure you are pregnant."

A few days later, I peed on that stick, and her suspicions were confirmed.

Let's get it started

Last summer, we decided to get the ball rolling. Our first try was in June. We had gone through the list of donors at our local sperm bank and chose our favorite. There's a lot of information that you can get about the donors and Cree was all about it. She wanted to get the family histories, the baby photos and the personal essays. Essays? I thought that was complete overkill -- and honestly I don't really want to know that much about this guy. He won't be perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, so as long as there's no major issues, then I'm good.

Cree came around (the second of many, many compromises and conversations!) and we decided to just go with it. We placed our order.

In the beginning

We decided a couple of years ago that we wanted to have a child(ren). At first we thought that I would actually be the one getting pregnant. I'd talked about the idea incessantly for several years and was completely and totally obsessed with baby names while on road trips. Really to the dismay of Bee.

Bee had fought a good hard fight against the establishment and slowly but surely my enthusiasm had been caught.

One day she came home from visiting with a baby and said "I think I want to get pregnant." This awesome news meant that we wouldn't have to wait another three years before I finished school (in sculpture, eww dust and inhalants) before we could start our family addition.