The Mom I Want To Be

It's official! As in, Facebook official, that is. We made our public announcement on November 22, 2018, Thanksgiving night, after telling the last of Hubby's relatives at Thanksgiving dinner. Here's what we said online: "One more Happy Thanksgiving to all my family and friends! This year, I'm excited to share that we have something extra special to be thankful for. Words cannot express how grateful, blessed, amazed, and overjoyed I was to learn this fall that I am now...a mother. Our family is growing, and though it be but little, it is fierce. This experience so far has taught us patience, gratitude, but above al l, just how much we can love someone we haven't even met yet. As we approach our one-year wedding anniversary in a little over a week, I can't help but think of our wedding speeches--how we have something new to fill our life bars, and fill our hearts whole with happiness. Jayson was generous enough to let me completely run with a Beaut...

I must admit I was terrified on the morning of November 21, 2018. My genetic testing appointment was scheduled for that afternoon, the day before Thanksgiving. At age 32, I'm not yet high risk, but the doctor offered non-invasive first-trimester screening for genetic abnormalities like Down Syndrome and scheduled us for the High Risk Pregnancy Center testing location at our last appointment. Hubby has an aunt with Down Syndrome, and the screening involved only blood work and an ultrasound--another chance to see Baby V up close!--so we agreed. But that didn't mean I was going to be calm as I waited through an entire half day of work wondering if the child inside me was okay. It had been three weeks since my last ultrasound when I last got a chance to see the baby. For all I knew something could have happened unrelated to genetics in that time. I'd taken an airplane to Texas, visited Mexico, ate bad food, gotten a subconjunctival hemorrhage in both eyes, and caught a sl...

Fudge, fudge, call the judge, Stephanie's having a baby! Wrap it up in toilet paper, send it down the elevator, What will it be? Boy? Girl? Twins or an alien?? On the plane ride at around 10.5 weeks to visit my grandfather in Texas, I started reading the young adult novel,  Ogre Enchanted , by the same author as my beloved  Ella Enchanted   (which I   first read in sixth grade). While it's not as good as the original, it's growing on me. The main character, Evie, is transformed into an ogre by a fairy's spell. As an ogre she's big and stout, quick to anger, and hungry all the time. My first thought? Oh, it's like she's pregnant. While early pregnancy doesn't have me quite feeling like an ogre (yet), there have been a few first trimester moments of discouragement as I begin to transform a bit myself--changes in skin, in waist, in health. Even in mood: my first moment of irrational sobbing happened in our Texas hotel room after I watched one of ...