I decided to start a separate, private blog to use as pregnancy journal and as a way to keep family and friends who are far away involved and up-to-date. We found out Friday night that we are expecting November 1st! After three negative pregnancy tests as recent as Thursday night, we decided to go to Target and get one more test since Aunt Flo was still nowhere to be found. I got a 2 Pack digital test that said YES+ or NO- since I thought this would be a lot more definitive. I took the test after going out to dinner with my cousin Brady, who was in town for work, and as I waited for three excruciating minutes I never really once thought that it would actually say YES+. I looked down and saw that it had stopped blinking, so I picked it up and my mouth immediately fell open and I probably stared at it for a good minute or so in complete shock. [Note: As you can see, I proceeded to return to Target and buy more tests before finally believing I might actually really truly be pregnant after the third YES+.]
I then flung open the bathroom door and ran into the living room where Derek was sitting and said, "I'm pregnant!" He immediately jumped up to look for himself and was in complete shock. We have been talking about this since December, but we never REALLY thought it would actually happen on the FIRST try!!! We are very excited and can't wait for our first real doctor's appointment, which will be March 17th. I should be seven and half weeks by then, so hopefully we will be able to hear the heartbeat at that time.
I have a meeting with my regular lady doctor this Friday to discuss my maternity benefits with a nurse practitioner, but after much thought I think we have decided to have the baby at TMC-Lakewood, which is part of the hospital system where I work. The Lakewood campus is about 30 minutes from our house and is a nice, quiet, suburban hospital with nurses and doctors I really trust. Also? It's completely free if I have my baby at one of our hospitals, so I think that would be a good idea, mmkay? However, I'm going to go ahead and go to my appointment this Friday just in case for some reason things don't work out with the woman who I would like to deliver me at Lakewood.
Being in charge of patient satisfaction, I have the advantage of knowing right away which doctor I want to see...and in fact, she is not a doctor, but a midwife. She has the highest satisfaction rating (97%...and that exceeds the next closest doc by 10%) of any doctor/midwife in the entire organization...and not just OBs! She is who I will be seeing on 3/17 and I am really looking forward to finally getting to meet her.
I plan to post things like belly pictures (when I stop just looking fat) and updates on doctor's appointments, how I'm feeling, how the baby is developing, plans for training Helix and Ava that Baby von Bauer is not a snack or play toy, and other random Bauer fun-facts of course! I hope you'll check back often and share this experience with us...we are extremely excited and a touch scared shitless!
Derek and Ashley