How to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon?

Listening to the radio and rating baby name combinations.  Only 225 more days to go.  (B is doing well and so is baby.)

Please pray...B is bleeding.

Just putting it out there so all of you can say a prayer (or cross your fingers...whatever) for B. She started bleeding today and had to go to the emergency room. They did an ultrasound and she texted to say that they still found a heartbeat at 138 bpm, but she may have to go on bed rest and is still talking with the doctor. Please pray that everything is okay with our baby. That little kidney bean needs to keep growing!!

Update:  B was sent home and ordered bed rest through next week.  Apparently the baby is fine, and the bleeding (which B said was quite a bit) was due to an irritated cervix?  Not sure what that means or why it would have caused her to bleed so much, but hopefully she gets better soon and off bed rest.  I know how she hates to be down, especially with 4 kids.  Of course, still we'd appreciate any positive thoughts and prayers for the baby's continued well-being.  Thanks all!

679 square feet

This weekend has had me in a bit of a meltdown.  It all started innocently when I decided I wanted to investigate buying a portable washing machine for our apartment.  You see we don't have laundry facilities in our building and we live in a 4TH FLOOR WALK-UP with two dogs.  Even though the laundromat is around the corner, I HATE lugging two weeks worth of laundry (because that's about how long we let it pile up) down to the laundromat.  We then spend aprox $25 for two loads.  I figured if we got a portable washer for the apartment (similar to this one), then perhaps life would be just a little bit easier.  So after running around Manhattan and Brooklyn looking for a place that had one on display (and making a trip to Buy Buy Baby to see cribs in person), I came back to our beloved apartment to start measuring.

I want to insert here that we really do love our apartment.  It's affordable (compared to many New York apartments), has lots of storage space, and is in an awesome public school district!

However once I started measuring I realized that things weren't going to fit quite as perfectly as I once thought.  I'd always randomly assumed our apartment was like 900 sq feet.   So I got a little curious about exactly how big it really is and discovered that our beloved apartment is 679 square feet (not including the closets, hallway and bathroom).

YIKES!  No wonder it's feeling a bit tight when I start to think about rearranging essential furniture, getting rid of non-essential furniture and putting in a crib.  Not to even mention a washing machine.  Ugh.

So as we I continue to plan for our little one to arrive, you'll hear me discussing small space solutions in more detail.  Right now I'm researching the various mini-crib options.  (We could technically fit a full-size crib, but I'm worried that it will end up taking up too much room that could potentially be used as playspace.)

Anyways...all this blather sounds pretty sane right now, but several hours ago I was freaking out along the lines of, "OMG...what are we doing?", "We'll be terrible parents!", "We live on a 4th floor!", "What if our child turns out to be a nutjob because he didn't have enough personal space?", "What if he turns out to be a nutjob because we made him sleep in his own crib and we should have done it euro-style and co-sleep?"

I think you get the picture.

*sigh*

This whole parenting thing seems like it's going to be tougher than I thought.  :-]

More thoughts on telling your child about their biology (re: egg donation / sperm donation)

Thanks to one of the SM's on surromomsonline.com I was pointed to a series of reports on NPR about surrogacy, and one in particular caught my eye.  It was this one titled "A New Openness for Donor Kids about their Biology."  Of course, the topic of how to tell our child that he/she was conceived using a donor egg has been something I've already been thinking about somewhat and posted on earlier, so it was nice to read more on the topic.

It was also thought-provoking reading the comments...

Our First Ultrasound

So today's ultrasound went very well!  We got the report back that the baby's heartbeat was 120 bpm and everything looked normal.  Yay!!!!!!!  And B texted me a pic of the gestational sac from the ultrasound!  It brought tears to my eyes!  

I mean...that's our baby right there!!!  I can't even believe it!  I was so excited that I told two co-worker friends.  (I'd previously told myself that I wouldn't tell anyone at work until the first trimester was over, but I couldn't contain myself.  The excitement bubbled over!!)  

Anyways...so great!  B has another ultrasound in two weeks!!  I can't wait for updated pics!  In the meantime, N and I need to go and pack up a care package for her tonight.  We're going to send her some music plus stuff for her kids.  

Oh, and lastly, thanks to everyone for your prayers for B!  She and her husband are working things out.  He's back home as of mid-week last week and things seems back to normal.  Not sure what wild hair went up his a$$....but hopefully he is fully back to his senses.  I'm just hoping he realizes what a good thing he has in her.  She's an amazing woman!!!!  (Her superpower is baking babies in her tummy!!)     

Okay....I lied. There's more to report than just morning sickness.

As Bernadette is in India struggling to deal with her two very premature newborn twins in Delhi NICU and fighting with an American insurance company, and Lisa & Lori have now lost their pregnancy so early in this journey...I have to admit something that I've not wanted to speak about for fear that it becomes more real.

First, I want to say that B is still pregnant as far as we know and yes, we're still waiting for our ultrasound on April 11th.  What I haven't said is that her husband of 10 years left her last week for another woman.  And she has four children at home.  While she's pregnant with our child.  Only weeks after she gets back from California for our transfer.  And the other woman is actually her friend that traveled to California with her for the transfer.  (She was in the room with us when she had the transfer!!)  Words cannot describe the stress and heartache that our lovely B is going through right now, and it's kept me worried and praying nonstop ever since I found out last weekend.

I wasn't sure I should (or would) write about this on the blog, but I feel compelled to be honest about all that we're going through during this journey.  It's not an easy process for sure, and there are ups and downs.  I cannot imagine having this happen, much less with four young children and pregnant with someone else's child.  As we continue to nervously wait for our ultrasound, please pray for B and the stress that she's under.  

Right now we're praying for peace for her and our baby each day.

Just a little morning sickness is all to report...

B tells me that our little bean is waking her up between 5 - 5:15am every morning with morning sickness.  She said she never had morning sickness with her four kids...so it's just turning out that our little one is a troublemaker already.  Yep...that's definitely our child alright!

Can't wait for the April 11th ultrasound!  Looking for a strong heartbeat!!