Thank-you, I had no idea

I have a pretty small body frame. 5'9" and about 127lbs, give or take a couple of pounds. My bone structure is quite small, although luckily I have never broken a bone (except for my baby toe on my right foot, which must have happened when I was quite young because I neither remember it nor have a reason for why it is slightly misshapen due to being broken - my husband recently discovered this fact and declares it is grounds for divorce as he finds it creepy looking and was not made aware of this "imperfection" pre-marriage).

Anyways, all of this small-ness and tall-ness has combined to have me "showing" our pregnancy fairly early on. I have had a distinguishable baby belly since probably about 14 weeks, and in the last couple of weeks, it has been *very* obvious. If one more person says "wow, you look really pregnant" I think I might kill them. Like geez, "oh really, do I? that *MUST* be what it is, thank you for clarifying, I thought I was just getting fat". I can appreciate that people mean well with these comments, but wow, people say the dumbest things to pregnant women.

Moving on to more positive things, we had our monthly checkup with the doc yesterday morning. We told him that we were hoping to find out the gender in advance, just for fun, and asked if the hospital would tell us at the ultrasound next week. Apparently it is our hospital's policy not to reveal gender, but he said that he could tell us! One of the nice things about having an ob-gyn for our baby doctor is that he has an ultrasound machine in his office. We listened to the heartbeat (163 bpm, it's been that high pretty much all along) and then he dumped the oh-so-cold ultrasound gel on and showed us our baby! We got the full on bum view, as if you were sitting on a chair and there was a camera underneath you, and it was amazing. You could see the wee bum, both legs, and at one point baby curled its feet under, and we saw the little toes! That was probably the most emotional moment I have had yet in this pregnancy, it was so fascinating.

Doc pointed out how the umbilical cord is resting between baby's legs, which makes determining gender a little more difficult for him, but he poked and prodded and looked all around, and finally said he's thinking that we're having a baby girl! Even with the cord in the way, he explained how he would normally be able to see some "boy bits" and he didn't see any, so his best guess for right now is that it's a Baby Girl for us! At our next monthly checkup in September he is going to take a look again, when we'll be farther along and hopefully he'll be able to see a more clear genital picture. All in all, we want a happy and healthy baby, so we would have been happy with either flavour ;) but it is pretty neat being able to say "she" and "her" and talking about our baby girl.

allow me to introduce myself

I have been called out by the oh-so-demanding Z to do an update. I suppose it is fitting, given that my last update was in January, which is a mere 7 months ago. Really, that's not too bad, it's not like it was 7 years ago. She's so demanding.

A lot has happened in that seven months of course. We decided back in late January or so that this would be the year we would try to conceive our first child, so off to the doctor we went to get all our ducks in a row. I had some bloodwork done, went off the pill, all systems came back "go" so we decided to hold off actively trying until closer to the wedding.

Well, as nature does have its way, the end of April rolls around and lo and behold, the stick says we're positive for pregnancy! We were both pretty damn excited and nervous and every other emotion at the same time. For the next few weeks we didn't tell many people other than parents and close friends and kept fingers crossed. All went well, the nausea was bad, but luckily I wasn't actually throwing up much and we decided to announce it "to the world" on our wedding day.

It was definitely a challenge, planning a wedding and a honeymoon while being pregnant - it made for a lot of stress, excitement, and emotion all at once! Our wedding day was everything we wanted it to be - except it was hot! Somehow we managed to pick what turned out to be the hottest day of the year to that point - it was an insane 37 degrees C out there! The guys in their tuxes and myself in a wedding dress, we certainly lost a few pounds worth of sweat. :) But it was a gorgeous day, the ceremony was beautiful, everyone cried, we got married, it was lovely! The reception afterwards was good food, not too much dancing (did I mention the heat?) but we had a great chance to visit with nearly all our friends and family. All in all it was a perfect day and I look back on it with fond memories, the greatest of which is that I now have a husband and an "official" stepdaughter.

The day after said wedding, we jetted off to Toronto to catch a flight to Jamaica! Unfortunately our Toronto - Jamaica flight ended up being delayed over 15 hours (never ever fly Skyservice, ever) and this did not exactly start our honeymoon off with a bang. We finally arrived in Montego Bay at 3AM local time and were quickly driven off to our resort, 1.5 hours away. The next day we got up and my god, that island is a beautiful place to be. Lush green fauna, amazingly crystal clear blue waters, it was truly beautiful. We spent the next two weeks eating and drinking (non alcoholic mostly!) and laying on the beach under "our" palm tree. It was blissfully relaxing and a great chance for us to reflect on everything that had happened over the last couple of months, and just decompress.

We flew home, enjoyed a week off at home with our daughter, and then back to reality.

Up next: Yes, thank you, I *know* I look pregnant...

2008 - The Year of the Wedding

Can you believe it is 2008 already? I think back to 10 years ago, when I was 6 months away from being finished with high school f-o-r-e-v-e-r and I remember how far away I thought this year was. The last 10 years have blown by, and I have experienced things I never even dreamed of as an 18 year old eager to get out of my parents house, out of high school, and on with my life.

Perhaps because I am getting married this year (me - married - who knew!), but I am really reflecting on the last 10 years this year, and I am also trying to imagine what the next 10 years will bring. Here is a small list of the things I have done in the last ten years, in a sort of order, because I LOVE LISTS:

• Graduated high school with honors
• Learnt that my dad isn't my biological father
  
• Moved out of my parents house, never to return! We hardly spoke for the next few years.
  
• Bought my first condo in Port Moody, BC
  
• Graduated from university with a Bachelor's degree
• Discovered my biological father committed suicide, and subsequently got in touch with his family, including my sisters, nieces, nephew, aunt and uncle, and cousins
  
• Bought my first house in Edmonton, Alberta
• Moved inter-provincially and lived in Edmonton for 2 years
• Travelled all over Canada on a quarterly basis for work, including going to Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories, the diamond mines 350km north of Yellowknife, to Thunder Bay, Ontario, and all over BC and Alberta
  
• Ended an unhappy 5 year relationship and promised myself I would never live that way again, I probably learnt the most about myself and what I want and don't want during this breakup
• Built an amazing career with good experience and solid education
  
• Bought my first apartment completely on my own, and without even seeing it
  
• Moved interprovincially again, to beautiful Penticton, BC completely cold turkey, without knowing a soul
• Took a job that is 8 - 4 and allows me to concentrate more on my life outside of work
  
• Joined a baseball team and fulfilled a lifelong 'dream' of playing slo-pitch socially
• Got set up on a blind date, went, and am now marrying this same man
• Made some of the best friends I have ever had here in Penticton by making an effort to be more social, and valuing those friendships
  
• Learnt that having kids is worth it by having the most beautiful and amazing stepdaughter in the world

When I read back over that, and contemplate some of the things that I am not going to post here, I have had a pretty successful 10 years since high school. They were not at all like I imagined my life "before 30" was going to be, but for the most part, I also wouldn't change a thing. All of these experiences, they have made me who and what I am today, for better or worse!

The next ten years will be interesting ones. Now that I have a solid career in my field, the big changes are going to be on the personal front. Getting married this year will definitely be one of the highlights of my life, and I am terrified, but so excited at the same time. Eventually I imagine we will have children of our own - even though right now this still scares me. My biggest goal for 2008 is probably to spend more time with my family, visiting my parents and my brother more regularly. Other than that, just continuing to live my life and try to make the best of it.

Happy New Year everyone.