The last month has been fantastic. Joy continues to do really well. She has been showing that baby bump more and more each day. There are mornings when i look at her and think, humm, i think the belly popped out some during the night. The belly is growing much faster now, and its very exciting.
One of the things everyone, and in mean EVERYONE! says about having a baby is: “You better do all the things you want to do now, because once the baby arrives….” Well, we took some of this advice and took a “babymoon” to Maui, Hawaii early in June. 7 days great weather, good food, lounging, being together and enjoying each other. It was fantastic. Here is one of my favorite pics from the trip.
We have had a couple more visits with out midwives and they are terrific.
The clock is now around 25 weeks and few days! I can feel it getting more and more exciting each day. We started to put together our list of things we need for the home, the car and so forth, scheduling some time to actually go get things, i know that in no time at all its going to be go time. I am grateful that we get time to enjoy it all as it happens!
For me the word Mom or Mama (think Spanish) has meant one person, until now. This past mothers day that has really shifted for me. More and more each day its gets clearer how Joy embodies motherhood, how she exudes a nurturing, caring, loving, beings that has no word can convey its powerfulness and beauty. We celebrated mothers day by going to a small breakfast place in Berkeley “The Homemade Cafe”, this was the place where we eat on our first date, and it was just fitting to start the day there. We then took in some time in Napa, enjoying the warm day together, and doing one of the things we both love the most, eating excellent food. I find that each day, my whole perspective, life, being aligns more and more to the future. It is a strange feeling to start seeing with a different set of eyes, how the world is changing focus on a daily basis. Lots of folks have said “Just you wait till you are a parent…” and for the first time i can start to get what they are talking about. Humm, wow, they day that bundle arrives things are really gonna shift! and i can’t wait.
Here is a picture of Joy at the start of our mother’s day.
I got the digital data from UCSF from our ultrasound this past Monday. They sure get lots of data from ultrasounds, after finding some good software to look at DICOM files i was able to pull out the images and some AVI files. Here is sample of what we got. I intend to put together a fun video of them at some point.
This Monday we got an ultrasound done. I thought it was going to be a short visit, and it turned out to take well over an hour. I always thought it was like in the movies where you go in and in 30 seconds they are done. Am I glad it is not like the movies. It was such a treat to see the baby from so many different angles, so many different shapes, arms, legs, heart, kidneys, brain, feet, hands. The little nugget was sure moving around a lot, and it was soooo amazing to see the in real time movements. I really could have spent another hours just looking. They took well over 100 stills, we got a few printed I will include them in this post. We got all great news, baby is doing just fine, developing right on schedule. We also met with a high risk OB. It was good to his perspective and have more information to make our choices about the birth of our child. Joy’s tummy is really starting to show, and it just makes me happy happy! To say that I am grateful does not quite capture it all, and that is the only word that really fits right now.
Into our 16th week now, and things are going very well. We saw our midwives last Monday and all was good. The belly is the right size for 16 weeks! Joy is very glad that all the nausea and general “yuk” of the first trimester are done with, and she has been feeling much better for a while now.
Last weekend she felt this little one move, as she puts it “I felt a little fluttery movement”. The next day I put my hand one her belly as she noted that she could feel something moving again. I did feel movement, we both looked at each other with a “that could be a the little one, or something else”. Its so exciting to be even entertain the notion that we felt our child move for the first time. With more time the movements i am sure will get more pronounced. We have been having a lot of fun coming up with names, we have settled on none yet, and i am sure we will come to a great set of names by the time the the little one arrives.
In the next few weeks we will have one more ultrasound to check out that all is going well. We have chosen to not find out the gender of the itty bit till he/she joins us out here.
All is very exciting, and it seems that each week is passing with extraordinary speed! very soon we will have a new video camera, will post a video once i get it all put together.
For the first ultrasound I was in El Salvador visiting my parents, and I was not able to be in the exam room. Becky, who’s generosity is beyond words went with Joy and took my brothers camcorder and took some video which i was able to watch a couple of hours later with my parents some 3000 miles away. When the next ultra sound came along I was here and I wanted to get some video of it to send to our parents. Every ultrasound and exam has yielded excellent results. Now nearing the end of the first trimester, and looking forward to all that awaits us.
So here is the movie I put together.
We so are lucky! 10 weeks of excellent news, and perfect development. We have had 2 ultrasounds, all have showed great progress by our little "pomelo" as we like to call it/him/her. Our Dr. at UCSF has been very pleased with the results and all the reports and tests are great. Our nurse Susan has been awesome and really took care of Joy, Becky and myself every chance she got. Joy had some pretty constant "morning sickness" through the first 8 or so weeks, but now it seems to be subsiding quite a bit. Her energy level has really changed, with lots of resting and re-energizing going on. We are both so very excited about each day that goes by. It sure feels like each day bring something new, and something else to be grateful for. We are not steadily moving into the next part of the pregnancy, as the first trimester quickly comes to an end we are getting ready for the next months of, learning, planning, tests, happiness, love, and more love, and all the other things that come a long with such a journey. Here are some scans of the 3 ultrasounds, i have some video i will post soon as well.
On Friday we took our first pregnancy test at the lab. After a few hours of nail biting, we got the results: positive.
Joy called me at work, and said “You are going to be a dad”.
we have been enjoying the good news, and slowly calling frineds and family to share the news.
We want to share the good news with everyone that has supported us so much, and say thanks.
Thank you for all your support, all the times you have held us in your thoughts, prayers, space, love, and all the other ways you have sent such good favor. There is still plenty of road to go, and we are well underway.
Joy wanted to take the home test, so she did tonight, the image above is the result of the home test! soo awesome!
More good news yesterday. Got word from the embryologist. They froze 2 of our embryos on Monday, and another 5 on tuesday. These are the embryos we will use when we want to get pregnanat again, so having good healthy number makes us very happy.
A few things going on these last few days. Last week we did an egg retrieval from Becky. We got 12 great eggs, and all 12 fertilized. On day 3 the eggs looked great, the doctors said we could do a transfer on day 5. Day 5 is today. We did the transfer today, all went great, and Joy has bee resting at home all day. We both have been very excited about all this, and it has been going really great.
Here are a few pictures.
The day of the egg retrieval
And of the transfered embryo
