Saturday, April 2, 2011

Project Re-bootied: Part Two

"A Triumph for Science!" or, "Holy crap, it's a baby!"

And so, comfortably ensconced in our love nest in tranquil Stevens Point, WI, for the first time in recent memory able to unpack with some confidence we wouldn't be loading our books right back into new boxes, we set about the rigorous, but ultimately rewarding work of making a baby.
Step one, research, wherein we answered such pressing questions as: What is a basal, and how do I get a thermometer there? Should we smooth our temperature graphs? Digital or analog pregnancy tests? (Digital. Word.)

Step two, experimentation. 'Nuff said.

Step three, assessing your results... A small but worrying amount of blood (spoiler alert: it was just implantation bleeding!) led us to get an early first ultrasound. At 6 weeks, ultrasound is objectively pretty underwhelming; if you're lucky, you might get a little Atari kidney bean with a blinking pixel heartbeat in the center. But that's okay, because it carries the emotional weight of confirming what a pee-soaked hunk of plastic swore was true, and in our case, showed a small, healing implantation tear. We were tearful, and overjoyed.

But the second ultrasound! At 11-12 weeks, our books had prepared us to expect a strawberry or an okra or something. Imagine our surprise when they powered up the screen and there was our tiny, wiggly Little Scooter staring right at us! Not that famous 2001 profile, but a straight on shot, with dancing little hands and feet, refusing to sit still to be measured. Holy crap! We should have taken a video, to really convey all the detail, but we were too busy. Yes, crying again. Shut up.

Step four, pie! Two exits away from the hospital is a diner we've dubbed Erma Bombeck's, that serves homemade pies with fruit from their own orchards. It's becoming a tradition for us to get an early lunch and share a slice of pie while we talk about the day's appointment. Preliminary results indicate coconut cream is a superior choice to apple sour cream. We're due October 17th, so there's plenty more pie to be eaten. Stay tuned to this location for further updates!

4 comments:

galeaudr said...

i love step 4!
meep! auds

Traveling Mercies said...

i can't stop reading this. i love it. what a great story. sean- you are quite a writer! i love the pie tradition, but i'm wondering how they get palm trees for home-grown coconuts in stevens point? ;)

you're in my prayers for a healthy pregnancy and baby! xo!

Pastor Julia said...

Congratulations! I'm so happy for you. :)

novelgazer said...

Yeah, as if having a baby weren't an awesome enough blessing, somebody decided to throw in pie. It's a pretty great tradition we can't wait to share with the baby.

Except for the coconut cream -- I'm not sharing such a precious commodity (as T.M. points out =). Baby can get it's own.