First trimester hightlight #4

Instead of calling the ear doctor's parents right away to tell them our good news, we decided to wait a week. We'd planned a trip out to California and we knew it'd be really cool to be able to tell them in person.

On the flight out there we sat next to the most annoying person on the planet. Now, I usually get a little air sick during landing, but add first trimester nausea into the mix and it was all I could do to leave the barf bag in it's gross little pocket. My eyes were closed, head pinned back to the chair, knuckles white and my breath deep in and out, but did chatty Kathy next me stop gabbing for a minute? Not a chance. I felt so rude, but I literally could NOT look over and make eye contact with her for fear of a repeat showing of my mid-air snack of ginger ale and crackers.

When we finally landed and waited for his parents to pick us up from the curb I wanted to blurt out our news right away...but that wasn't the plan.

The day before we'd gone to a cool baby shop in our neighborhood and picked up two little figurines; one said grandma and the other, grandpa. We wrapped them up and decided we'd have his parents open them when we got back to their house.


Well, when the picked us up we were all hungry so stopped for dinner along the way. The suspense was killing me, but we managed to chow down and then drive back to their place.

As soon as we were there I threw open my bag and got out the packages. We sat down on the chairs in their front room (which BTW are really comfy gliders that will really come in handy when we come to visit them with the baby), handed each a package and watched with knots in our stomach as they unwrapped.

Of course, there were the usual protests before they saw what was inside, "oh, you shouldn't have got us a present" and "you don't need to do that." But as soon as my mother-in-law saw what it was and put two and two together she BEAMED with joy.

No one beams like my mother-in-law.

And my father-in-law was just as excited.

Out came a flurry of well wishes and excitement, of questions and ideas, of hopes and dreams. It was a great moment and I'm so glad the timing worked out that we could tell them in person.


We swore both of my sets of parents to secrecy for the next month or so. A VERY big challenge as they both wanted to immediately tell the rest of the family. I have to report that they all did an amazing job of keeping the cat in the bag until we were ready for the news to spread.

First trimester highlight #3

Ok, this one is actually a highlight.

We waited until I was almost 3 weeks late to take a pregnancy test. Since I've been as regular as a freight train since I was 14 years old, I was pretty sure what that meant. The first test I took we couldn't interpret the results and it was very anticlimactic. Before that moment I was always confused by the TV commercials that advertised CLEAR results. I didn't understand how a person could be confused by such a seemingly binary response.

But we couldn't tell exactly what was going on with our first test.

We drove back over to the grocery store and picked up a different brand...one that was more that just a line or a plus...one that had actual WORDS confirming our suspicions.

15 minutes later we knew.

3 minutes later I was on the computer calling up my parents on skype. I'm not sure if they suspected anything or not...we don't skype all that regularly. We chatted back and forth for about 15 minutes before we said, "well, we have some pretty cool news..."

And we showed them the positive test.


I thought my mom was going to explode with excitement. And the corners of my dad's eyes got a little wet...probably from allergies or something.


I will never forget the looks on their faces for as long as I live. My parents truly love me.

First trimester highlight #2

At the end of March the ear doctor and I flew out to California for a long weekend to visit his parents and go to a wedding. One of my favorite people from undergrad was getting married to the coolest girl and I just knew that we had to go.

The wedding was just beautiful, and really reflected the couple's personalities...which is my favorite part of a wedding. And the coolest part is that a couple of my other friends from undergrad also made the trek out to be there for the wedding.

After the party was over, my friend's rad wife suggested that we drive over and buy ourselves a cupcake from an ATM. By the time we got to the ATM it was probably 11 pm. We stood in line and talked for a hour before we got our confections.

They were devoured while sitting in chained up tables and chairs across the street. Total consumption time ~ 4 minutes.

We said our farewells and hit the road back to the ear doctor's parents house. What we did not expect was bumper to bumper traffic in orange county at 2 AM!  Seriously, how do people live like that?!?!?


Well, turns out that one thing you shouldn't do in your first trimester is 1) eat crazy sugary cupcakes in the middle of the night and 2) stay up until crazy hours.

The entire next day I was laid up in bed...feeling physically horrible because my body was thrashed and emotionally horrible that I was wasting a whole day of vacation with family.

First trimester highlight #1

My first trimester with the scamp wasn't nearly as bad as I was worried it would be. I'd seen my little sister through 3 pregnancies and, to be honest, her experience made me leery.

Basically, she looked and acted like death for at least 4 months. No energy until noon, pale as a sheet of paper and constantly bent over a public garbage can puking out her little guts.

Compared to that, mine was cake. However, there were some pretty special highlights.


For Christmas my in-laws got me an awesome VitaMix blender. As a result, the ear doctor and I had become fruit smoothie consuming junkies. My favorite was a blend of orange, banana, pineapple with a healthy handful of spinach thrown in. It was bright, neon green and delicious. I made one, poured it into my favorite to-go container and hit the road for my 40 minute, all-freeway commute to work.

About 15 minutes from my office, going 70 mph on the freeway I was suddenly overcome with the most powerful nausea of my life. Sweat beads popped up on my forehead and I was terrified by the idea of a loss of bodily control while moving in down the road at such a terrifying speed. Luckily, I was right by an off ramp. I got off and at the bottom of the ramp, the blessed light was red.

I've never in my life been so happy to see a red light.



I can only imagine what the woman who pulled up in the car behind me at the light thought when she saw this bright green vomit erupting from my body. 

Pod People?

Mars attacks?

Nerve gas?

Meet the Scamp

In case you haven't noticed, I haven't posted in over a MONTH!


It's kind of hard to write about anything else when all I want to do is share this news:

Due date: Nov 6



We call it the Scamp