Our Baby Boy, and a BIG Prayer Request

Yesterday morning, we finally got to see our baby face to face (sort of) for the first time. As soon as the ultrasound tech put the probe to my belly, we were shocked and awed by how much the baby had changed since the little peanut-shaped object we had seen at our last sonogram twelve weeks earlier. There was a whole, human-shaped baby in there, with arms, legs, fingers, toes, and a face. A sweet, adorable face that we instantly fell hopelessly in love with...

The baby also comes complete with undeniably male genitalia, and we're thrilled to announce that our first child is a baby BOY named Benjamin Elijah! We wanted to name him after his daddy, but didn't want him to be a "junior" (Ben's name is Benjamin Franklin, believe it or not), so we'll call him Eli. We were (well, I was) a little unsure about the girl name, so it's a good thing he turned out to be a boy and saved me all the angst of trying to commit to a girl name - we've been completely sold on the boy name since before he was conceived, so it was pretty easy!

So far, Eli isn't showing any CF-related symptoms, which is encouraging news. There is a complication that occurs in about 15% of CF babies called meconium ileus (MI), which is essentially a bowel obstruction made up of meconium (which is the term for all babies' first poop, which accumulates throughout pregnancy and is usually passed within the first 24 hours of life outside the womb). That's what we're looking for on all of our ultrasounds now - an "echogenic bowel" which could indicate that an MI is developing. Some CF babies are born with some liver disease as well, though that is FAR more rare than MI. At any rate, the maternal-fetal medicine doctor that we spoke with after the ultrasound said that she saw NO signs of anything CF-related. Of course, even if he doesn't develop any of those fetal period complications, he could still very well have CF (85% of CF babies don't develop MI), but it's encouraging nonetheless, and makes us feel better about delivering with the midwives at the community hospital. If we did see that he could be developing an MI, we would have to plan on delivering at Hopkins instead, as he would probably need immediate surgery after birth to remove the obstruction and would have to be transferred there anyway.

Unfortunately, that's not the end of this sonogram story for our sweet baby boy. The reason that the doctor came in to speak with us in the first place was that the ultrasound did turn up an abnormal finding (entirely unrelated to CF). It turns out the Eli has a multicystic dysplastic left kidney. His kidney is enlarged and contains several variably sized cysts, and will most likely (90%) never be functional. The development of the cysts is a result of abnormal embryological development - it's a structural issue with the way the piping hooked up to the kidney during early development - and though the kidney could (10%) function for some unknown length of time with the cysts, the cysts won't resolve themselves or go away. Most likely, the kidney will just shrivel up (or involute) during the first five years of his life. He will have to be followed by a pediatric urologist who will monitor the bad kidney to make sure that it's not getting infected or causing any other problems, and so long as it behaves (shrivels up like it should) it can just stay in there - there's no medical need to remove it. If it does start to cause any problems, it will just need to be removed laparoscopically.

Of course, we all know that a person can live a perfectly normal life with only one kidney. We know that he's going to be OK no matter what happens with this bad kidney - whether it ever functions or not. But dangit, my baby deserves to start his life with ALL of his organs present and functioning, and so I've decided to start praying for a miracle. There is no prayer request too big for our awesome God, no matter how physically "impossible" it may seem. I know with every fiber of my being that we could go back for our next ultrasound in 6 weeks and that kidney could be miraculously healed. That may not be God's will for Eli, but we have resolved that if this is a test of faith, we're going to show God just how big our faith is by trusting Him with an "impossible" request. We're going to pray faithfully EVERY DAY over the next 6 weeks for healing for our baby boy's kidney. We're not going to just pray for the bare minimum - that his other kidney remains healthy and that nothing else goes wrong - we're swinging for the fences on this one.

I'd like to ask each and every one of you, our dear friends and family, to join us in this little "prayer crusade" of ours over the next 6 weeks. I ask that you would commit yourself to say a little prayer each morning for a healed kidney for Eli. It will only take a few seconds but we all know the tremendous impact that God's people can have when we storm the gates of heaven in prayer! Just breathe a few words in prayer for our son as you're brushing your teeth or driving to work each day - it would mean the WORLD to us if you'd join us. Thank you all for your love and support, and for your prayers for our sweet baby boy :]

And now... more cute sono pics ;]

16 Weeks

I have to say that I'm feeling better every day, in many ways. I hate to "say it out loud", but it seems as though my exhaustion is starting to lift... a bit. It's becoming more manageable during the day, which has always been the worst part - trying to be motivated and productive at work when all you want to do is pass out face-down on the keyboard is really difficult. I'm finding that the early mornings and the late evenings are the worst. Getting up in the morning is still nearly impossible some days, and by about 8pm I'm ready to change into PJ's and slide into my cozy bed. But other than that, I'm definitely noticing some improvements.

I'm also feeling better and better about the CF news. We saw a genetic counselor and spent about a week agonizing over whether or not to have amniocentesis done, and that was definitely the worst part of all of this (and we were still in the middle of that when I wrote my last post). Of course there's no outcome that could have caused us to terminate the pregnancy - it wasn't about that - but the unknown was really eating away at us (teetering on unhealthy levels of obsession), and there are still some decisions that we might make differently if we knew one way or the other. But at the end of the day, for us, none of the potential benefits could ever justify the risk - small as that risk may be - of losing our baby to miscarriage. That would be far more devastating than the difficulty of dealing with this unknown for another 6 months, and we'd probably never ever really forgive ourselves if the worst were to happen. As much as we're dying to know - either to put our hearts and minds at ease or to begin the grieving process and prepare for the future - we know that we made the right decision. It has been SO much easier to put it all out of my mind and focus on the positives ever since leaving that heart-wrenching decision behind us. It was completely consuming while we were still contemplating it, and I'm so relieved that that's over. It's been much easier than I had anticipated, too... I thought that giving up the possibility of knowing would be incredibly difficult, but we've both been completely fine. Neither of us has an ounce of regret or concern for what could have been - only relief that the potential horror that could have been won't be. God has given us such great peace over this decision that it has just become impossible to second-guess it - such an incredible blessing.

So now we move on to the fun stuff :-) We visited Babies R Us the other day for the first time... HOLY. SMOKES. That place is unreal. I think we're going back this afternoon, this time wielding the registry scanner gun! I started our registry online and had added a few things, but I've found already that things can look a lot different in person, and that we're probably better off doing most of the registering at the store. We'll probably hold off on a lot of things until we know the sex (in about a month!), but until then we can still register for some of the essentials... and once you're in there, you really can't help yourself. And honestly, after all this craziness we've been dealing with, who can blame us for having a little registry fun? I have the benefit of two sisters-in-law and several close friends who are a veritable encyclopedia of baby gear knowledge and recommendations, which is saving me tons of time on research ;-) I'm trying to focus on the practical features that will make life easier day-to-day, but the cutesy patterns are so darn distracting! Take travel systems, for example (stroller + infant seat + infant seat car base). I've found that most strollers have a braking mechanism that I do not like, that is impractical for flip-flop junkies like myself. The ONE stroller I found that has a more practical mechanism that I like has approximately ZERO cute, gender-neutral prints (at least as far as what Babies R Us carries). They're either too gender-specific or straight-up ugly. And I refuse to get a gender-specific car seat and stroller, because I refuse to put myself in the position of feeling like I have to buy a new one when our next baby is the opposite gender. I only feel this way about the big expensive stuff like play yards, travel systems, swings, etc. I'm gonna end up having to make a second registry somewhere else when I find a place that carries a pattern that we like!

For all my griping, at the end of the day I'm just thrilled to have a reason to think about all these things :-) Even the scary things. At least I've been blessed with a baby to worry about those things for, and that's really all that matters!

The CF Saga

Once again, elements of my personal life - which I was not prepared to share - have kept me from Blogger. I just find it so difficult to blog when my mind is absorbed in something that I'm not ready to share. But this is something that's never going away, so there's no keeping it a secret... nor is there really any reason to keep it a secret. So without further adieu, I give you "The CF Saga".

As you all know, my husband Ben's niece Lacy has Cystic Fibrosis. If you don't know much about it, check out the CF page on my blog - you'll be an expert in 15 minutes. I'm serious... if you don't know much about it, GO READ ABOUT IT. I'll wait for ya...

Ok, so you're back. Now you know. I just don't like talking about CF with people who don't know much about it, because I find that people tend to assume a lot when they hear a complicated medical term like "Cystic Fibrosis", particularly if they're aware that it's a genetic disorder. They tend to assume that it affects a child's mental faculties and they picture something completely inaccurate. But now you won't do that, because you've been informed.

So, knowing that CF is a genetic disorder, and knowing that both of Ben's sisters carry the genetic mutation that causes CF, we knew that Ben might be a "carrier" too. To be affected with CF, a child must inherit two mutated copies of the CFTR gene - one from Mom and one from Dad (put another way, both Mom and Dad must be "carriers" of a CF mutation). Just having one mutated copy makes you a carrier, but you don't "have" CF. Anyway, at my first prenatal appointment I made it a point to include CF carrier testing in my first round of blood work. We figured that I'd go ahead and get tested since I needed some blood work anyway, and once we had confirmation that I wasn't a carrier, we wouldn't have to be concerned about whether Ben is a carrier.

We weren't at all prepared for the news that we got a week later - that I am a carrier of the deltaF508 CF mutation, the same mutation that runs in Ben's family. It came as a shock to us both, but in the grand scheme it's not all that surprising... CF is rather common as far as genetic diseases go, particularly among Caucasians. 1 in 29 Caucasians carries a CF mutation. I was just SO sure that I wouldn't be that 1.

The next step was to have Ben tested. The fact that his sisters are both carriers certainly wasn't a guarantee that he would be, so we held on to hope - his odds were probably about 50/50. The lab certainly took its sweet time with the results. My results came back within a week so we expected the same for his, but it was just over 3 weeks when we finally heard back. Positive. Ben is a carrier too.

Suddenly this new reality came crashing into our lives. Completely out of our control, utterly permanent and wholly devastating. Now we know that this baby has a 25% chance of being born with CF. And now we know that every baby we ever have will share those same odds. We know that every time we consider having another child, we will also have to consider this risk. With every pregnancy, we will suffer this same agonizing fear and worry. And one day, whether months from now or years from now, we may be faced with a child with CF. This long-anticipated child-bearing season of my life - this thing that I've been so looking forward to and longing for for so long - will be forever clouded. There's just no way around it, and it will never be the same. I will never again have the luxury of simply assuming that we're having a "healthy" baby.

I hate it. I hate it so much. I hate that our precious, innocent unborn children may have to suffer with CF. I hate that we don't get to be like any other "normal" couple that just conceives, carries and bears healthy children without a second thought. I know that every pregnancy has its risks and every parent worries throughout every child's life, but having this kind of information really changes the game. I know what it's like to worry about a pregnancy, to worry about miscarriage, to worry that the baby could be born with a problem, but to KNOW that something so devastating is a real possibility changes everything.

Thank God for God, is all I can say at this juncture. Everyone has their challenges in life to deal with, and right now CF is ours, but I just don't know how people do it without Him. I have never needed someone to release my worries to the way I need Him now. I know that He is infinitely better equipped to handle this situation than I am, and that He has a plan for all of it - He is carefully coordinating even the seemingly insignificant details. I know that He can and will use this situation to strengthen our faith, to strengthen our marriage and to touch lives around us, too. Because of that knowledge, I can look forward to what God has in store for us even as I grieve over this news and this new reality. I can take heart in the fact that He is in control and that He WILL sustain us through whatever is to come.

We're grieving and stressing and worrying, and it has certainly been difficult. I have my moments of peacefulness and my moments of fearfulness, not to mention anger and frustration. But we truly are growing together and learning to cope together, and we're gonna be OK. It will be a long road regardless of the outcome of this pregnancy, but for now we're trying to focus on this baby - this incredible miracle that we've been blessed with - and enjoying our transition into parenthood together.

Ye Be Warned...

...the phenomenon commonly referred to as "Baby Brain" is a REAL THING. It's not just something that pregnant women have made up to make themselves feel better about making silly mistakes. I'll admit that I never really understood "baby brain" ...it just sounded silly to me, like they were saying that they were just so distracted by being pregnant that they forgot stuff a lot (...or something).

But let me set the record straight... pregnancy has truly robbed me of many of the everyday cognitive abilities that I once enjoyed (and took for granted, I might add). I can't remember A.N.Y.T.H.I.N.G., unless it's written on a brightly colored post-it and in my face for most of the day. Nothing holds my attention - I'm constantly losing focus and often can't remember what I was doing before I drifted. It's like having some strange combination of ADD and dementia. Even simple math eludes me much of the time. And most disturbing of all is that I make mistakes without even realizing it - I've caught some pretty ridiculous ones, but only because by chance I had to go back and look at what I'd done for one reason or another. It makes me wonder how many other screw-ups have gone undetected! I'm double-booking myself, losing things, forgetting EVERYTHING, not really "seeing" things that I'm looking at or reading... it's quite frustrating. I actually threw a $250 pipettor in the trash the other day at work, and had NO recollection of doing it. It's unreal.

I haven't read up on the root cause of all of this, but for now I'd say it's entirely possible that it's all due to the extreme fatigue. I'm just exhausted, so it's no big surprise that my brain isn't firing on all cylinders. I wish I had known just how exhausted I'd be. People warned me, but there's just no preparing a person for this. I thought I knew what "tired" felt like, and it's not that I've never felt this tired before - of course I have - but never 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I've never dealt with exhaustion that couldn't be fixed with rest. I quite literally feel the same way all day long - when I wake up after 9 hours of sleep, I feel exactly the same as I did when I went to bed. There are things that make me feel more "awake" temporarily, like walking around or engaging in a funny conversation or something, but as soon as that activity is over I'm right back to square one.

Now, all that said, I don't mean to "complain", exactly. Just to warn people. I think that all pregnant women feel a responsibility to their peers, to somehow prepare them for all of this (even though we all know there's no preparing anyone... you just don't KNOW til you know, as with most things in life!). And I guess I'm also saying all this to help everyone around me understand why I'm so frickin' scattered these days! It's so frustrating, constantly feeling either guilty or just plain stupid, but luckily when you're pregnant people tend to make allowances for you and be extra nice ;-] It all balances out, I suppose! At the end of the day, of course I wouldn't trade any of it. You just deal with it and take it all day by day (and look forward to the lifting of the fog, which I'm assured is just around the corner)!

Big Ol' Baby Update

Well I clearly have LOTS of catching up to do, huh? Where to begin?

At the beginning, I suppose. So, my dear sweet husband came to me in November-ish with a shocking declaration... "I think I'm ready to have a baby." You can imagine my excitement. Our original plan had always been to try in the Fall of this year, but now he was ready to push that up to Spring time. Score! Well, within a few weeks, as our anticipation grew, "Spring time" became "February or March". By Christmas, we were saying "What the heck are we waiting for anyway?!" ...and so it began. And less than two months later, at 6am on February 10th, I was blinking in amazement at this incredible sight...

Jaw-dropping, I tell you. I had been crampy for days, and the night before this test it had gotten noticeably worse - I just KNEW that Aunt Flo was on her way. I was, of course, not taking it so well. Ben kept reassuring me and telling me to wait and see, but I knew my body, I knew menstrual cramps, and I KNEW these were them. I was shocked to wake up the following morning (the pre-determined test day, exactly two weeks post-ovulation) with no sign of AF. And of course once I was awake, I had to go take the test - there was no falling back asleep at that point. So I went in and peed on a stick, convinced that it would be negative just like every other pregnancy test I've ever taken in my life (which is more than I care to admit, and only because I'm nuts and always think/hope that I'm pregnant). Within about 30 seconds, I could already see the second line. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. There are no words. I went back into the bedroom and fell on my knees next to Ben's side of the bed (where he was trying - to no avail - to snooze away his last few minutes before the alarm) and said "Babe, it's positive" ...to which he responded "See, I told you" ...and so we became parents-to-be!

By the time we got home from work that day, we were both beside ourselves, ear-to-ear grins, SO relieved to be together again where we could talk about what was on our minds! Those first few days were such a rollercoaster... so much excitement, disbelief, joy... such an emotional high. But at the same time, I spent the first week or two just waiting to lose the baby. Every trip to the restroom was agonizing - I just knew that the next time I went, I'd be bleeding or something. Being pregnant just introduces this whole other world of worries, and because it's all centered on something someone SO incredibly important, it's amplified a thousand times more than you'd worry about anything else in your life. And I haven't even met the kid yet. LORD help me. Actually, "Lord help me" is exactly what I've been chanting for the past... well, ever since we started trying. Being pregnant opens up your daily dialog with God, because you find yourself CONSTANTLY needing to ask Him either to protect your baby or to calm your worries (or both... usually both). It's pretty intense.

So we were at 4 weeks when we found out, and here we are at 10. Sometimes it feels like this baby has always been here, and I can't believe it was just last month that we found out we were expecting. But most of the time, it feels like time is just CRAWLING. I think maybe that's a result of all of the anxiety that comes along with the first trimester - the risk of miscarriage, the worries about your own well-being, the brand new (and terrifying) revelation that you're responsible for another human being but that most of what's going on is completely and utterly out of your control... it's a lot to take. Plus there's the exhaustion. Pure and extreme exhaustion. Waking up in the morning is a challenge to say the least, and the prospect of an entire 8-hour work day looming ahead of me is just so overwhelming, I can hardly stand it. Monday mornings are the worst - when I know that I have to do this 5 times before I get to sleep in again. It completely ruins my motivation. It's been rough. 

However, on the bright side, that's really my only complaint at this point! I haven't really had any morning sickness to speak of (knock on wood). I did come down with a killer stomach virus at 6 weeks, which had me up all night vomiting and then flat on the couch for a good 3 days after that, unable to move without feeling seriously nauseated. I tried so hard to at least keep myself (and the baby) hydrated, but I really couldn't eat much if anything. I've also had one or two mornings where I had to take my prenatal vitamin (I usually take it after dinner on a full stomach, but these times I forgot and had to take it the next morning), and my stomach did NOT support that decision. Not one bit. But those are the only bouts of nausea I've had, lucky me! 

Of course I'm also peeing like crazy, partly because of all the extra blood volume coursing through my kidneys, and partly because I'm trying to be good about drinking lots of water (two liters a day, I've been instructed!). I get up at least twice a night to pee, which sucks, but luckily I'm so dang tired that getting back to sleep usually isn't much of an issue. I started wearing maternity jeans last week also, because my regular pants were getting seriously uncomfy. There are still a few pairs that I can wear, as long as I leave them unbuttoned and use a hair tie to keep them closed (a trick I learned from my sister-in-law Emily... best idea ever!). That keeps them from cutting into me too much. I was used to sometimes having my pants cut into me - we all have our "bloated" days - but it suddenly becomes extra-intolerable when you're pregnant, for whatever reason! I was warned about this, and it's so true. Anyway, once I started with the maternity jeans, it became rather obvious that I was pregnant. Suddenly your pants aren't cutting you off mid-abdomen anymore (giving you that oh-so-attractive 360-degree muffin top), so your belly takes it's natural shape... which at this point, for me, is rather round. Suddenly you don't look plain "fat" anymore, you start to look pregnant. I guess since I'm short, it's happening to me earlier than average, but I'd definitely say that I'm "showing". I took at 7-week photo as a sort of "before" shot and then another at 9 weeks, and I could already see a difference. But now, at 10, it's even more pronounced. I'd take another one and post it, but I'm so comfy here on the couch under my laptop... 

7 weeks... excuse the paint-splattered pants

9 weeks... Hello, bump

Unfortunately I feel like these photos do no justice to the picture I'm seeing in the mirror, but oh well. Soon enough I'll really be showing and you'll all stop laughing at me ;]

And for the record, before I go, I'd just like to note that NFP was instrumental in all of this. When I went off of the Pill we used it to postpone pregnancy (successfully, obviously) for about 7 months, and when we were ready to try, all it took was a decision. We just had to switch our charting efforts from avoiding the fertile times to targeting the fertile times, plus I had months of charting experience and had become very familiar with my cycle so we knew exactly how to time things. I also used the ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor, which is an ovulation predictor and helps you to anticipate when it's coming to help you focus your "efforts" :] It's a good thing we were using it, because as it turned out I ovulated several days earlier than usual that month, and the monitor clued us in to that so that we could get started in time. Phew! Anyway, just wanted to take a moment to plug the benefits of NFP, and to make sure that no one is attributing this to an NFP "failure" - this was entirely planned, and NFP made it so much easier to achieve!

Well, I think we've covered enough ground for one evening. There's so much more to say, of course, but we'll save it for another post on another day. That'll keep me blogging!

10 Weeks and Counting...

Well, if you read my blog, chances are you already know. But just in case...

We're expecting our first teeny bebe on October 16th!!! 

I haven't been blogging because honestly, it's really hard to think of anything else to write about when you have your own baby on the brain ;-) But hopefully, now that the news is "out there", I'll have a lot more to say! 

Well, Hello There!

Bad Blogger! Bad Blogger!

Sorry, friends. I'm a big fat blogging failure! I don't even really have much of an excuse, except that I haven't had a ton to say lately, I suppose! Not that things haven't been happening... I don't know. I think about blogging from time to time, and I do have the time, but nothing ever comes to me when I think about composing a post.

The last few posts I managed to write were all about my future career path woes, so let's get that out of the way first. Here's the update: I'm done stressing about it. DONE. I decided not to follow through on any of my applications for the fall 2011 semester - I'm staying where I am. As you know, I was driving myself nuts trying to cover all of my bases, still so unsure about all of the dramatically different options I was considering, and SO concerned about time. I felt that we couldn't afford to pay on my student loans for an entire additional year, so I felt I HAD to move on next fall. Well, I finally admitted to myself that I was rushing into the decision, which is the absolute last thing I should be doing at this point in my life, and I NEED more time. NOT taking my time on this one just isn't an option. So I got a loan consolidation to get my student loan payments under control, and I'll be staying put for the foreseeable future. I love my job, I LOVE the people that I work with, and my boss is happy to keep me around for an extra year. AND (bonus) my job is also giving me a lot of exposure to both the research and clinical worlds, and provides me with access to lots of helpful people to shadow and chat with as I work on sorting out what I want in a career. I couldn't have picked a better job or a better work environment for this particular season of my life. So, that's where we stand on that front! I'm completely content, stress-free, at peace, and loving every minute of it :]

In other news... I haven't been to yoga in a few weeks - between the holidays and the illnesses around here (me last week and now Ben), I've just been short on energy and free time. But I'm definitely still into it and I still plan on sticking with it for a good long time. I've found that, when it comes to exercise, the worst thing I can do is guilt myself for not going. I just have to see every day as a new opportunity to exercise (whether it's at home, at the gym, or at the yoga studio), and not see it as an accumulation of days that I haven't gone. So I'll get back to it when I get back to it, and I'll fall back into the routine, and it'll be fine.

Christmas was GREAT. Ben got me some new camera equipment, I got him a PS3, our families gave us some fun Ravens stuff, movies, clothes, jewelry, DELICIOUS coffee (thanks Em!), the "Move" bundle for the PS3 (like the Wii or the XBox Kinect)... I'm sure I'm missing some really great stuff but we just got so spoiled that it's tough to remember it all! What was REALLY fun was watching the kids tear into their gifts. Speaking of which...

Oh, Hello Cara! Who is now 1 YEAR OLD!

And here's Lacy (11), with her new Pillow Pal from Nana

Evan (3) looking dashing in his new Ray Rice jersey from Ben & Jenna!

Leo (5 1/2) as Joe Flacco, and Evan just feeling proud to look like his big brother ;]

The teeniest-tiniest (and most adorable) little Santa you've ever seen... it's Carsen (8 months)!

And here's Lacy again, looking more like a 20-year-old in her new outfit and hat from Em

Leo and his flying Jedi Starfighter from Ben & Jenna

Carsen's Brair.Claire hat from Ben & Jenna... after she got over the tears and realized how cute it was ;]

And that about sums up Christmas at Ben's mom's! 

Just thought that after all the reading you've been doing, I should humor you with a few cute photos. All taken with my new camera, of course, and the awesome flash that my hubby gave me :] I can't tell you what a life-saver a good flash is, particularly when it comes to photographing kids (who never sit still) in low light (as in, generally speaking, any time you're indoors). 

Alright, before I pass out from the exertion of all this uncharacteristic blogging effort, I'm gonna cut this off. Happy New Year to you all! Hope to give you a reason to stop by again soon :]