Merry Christmas

Well, its two days after Christmas and "The BIG Announcement" to my family. Mom seemed genuinely surprised, which is absolutely what I was going for. All seems to be going well, with one little exception...I really hate not being able to do things that I was able to do just a few short months ago. Sleep seems almost impossible. I cannot seem to get comfortable no matter what I try. The belly is starting to bulge out now, not that anyone can see yet, but it is definitely taking on the shape of a pregnant belly.

We had our Down's Syndrome test a few weeks back and the results were excellent. Despite being in the "at risk" age group, I slid right into the normal range for the chances of Down's or its next of kin which they also tested. Every ultrasound we have take has shown good progress in the growth and health of Little Lucan(ne). We are very much looking forward to finding out whether it will be a boy or a girl and will hopefully know on January 3. It's a little early (only 18 weeks), but we are still hopeful that we will be able to tell. Just as soon as we find out we will let everyone know.

Now that the cat is out of the bag I feel that I can finally share some of my plans for the baby's room. The "green room" that was originally the nursery for the previous owners will be painted/stenciled with a magical/fairytale/camelot/celtic theme, regardless of the sex of the baby. I have the stencils already for the castle walls, Sugar Plum Dragon Head, a Unicorn Head, suits of Armor and gargoyles. Once I get the skim coating done on the walls I will be able to start stenciling and then I can see if I need to add anything else. I'm very excited to get started!! If only someone could get this snow to stop so I can open the windows up to do the skim coating! :)

That's all for now. More after the doc's appointment next week!

Nothing is easy...

Today has already been a really hard day for me. But in spite of it all, this unborn child is already such a gift that just the promise of its arrival helps me move on. I am very blessed.

A couple of weeks ago, Karna was told she could go off the prometrium. The result has been fantastic, she has been doing great, with the notable exception of yesterday and the day and night before it. From Tuesday afternoon until this morning, she's had a hard time keeping anything down. She's a bit shaky today, but I think it has passed. I don't think was the baby, I think it was the Colorado River Trout she had for dinner Monday night, but I could be wrong. Other than that, and her beginning to feel the pangs of growth and stretching, she's doing great!

I will try to do better with this little column, I hope to hear from you all soon. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

With much Love,
Ty

Dodging a Bullet - Because I'm an Idiot

Let me preface this post with some advice to all - DON'T use the Internet as THE source for ANYTHING!!

So last week I was watching the creepy spinning fetus to the right here and I clicked on the little thing to see what was going on with it. It is a very cool website, it will tell you what is growing this week and what Mom is going through and what Dad has to deal with. I like it a lot. But last week there was a red bubble about miscarriage (queue the Dragnet music).

It said, "The signs of the beginnings of a miscarriage are loss of blood, cramps in your abdomen and pain in your lower back."

So over the weekend I heard Karna say that her back was hurting. On Sunday she was having some pretty bad cramps. My idiot brain says "OH S#!T, 2 out of 3!!!" and without mentioning it to Karna, I have been thinking she's on the edge of a miscarriage and I was STRESSED about it all week.

So we went to her 10 week appointment today and I am praying for the heartbeat so I can breathe again. The Doc started with the sound only ultrasound device - it's for hearing the heartbeat - nothing - now I am really panicking. Karna noticed the look on my face and asked me what was going on, but I just half smiled and we all went to the room with the visual ultrasound. He immediately found the kid, but it took a few seconds to get a good angle on the heart. More freaking suspense and tension, but then I saw it (even before the Doc) - the pulsing cloud of white light on the monitor - WHEW!! I smiled and damn near cried.

The baby is doing great! It has knees already and kicked a couple of times. It had a heart beat of 158 BPM and it was moving around a lot.

What my mind failed to grasp here was that ALL pregnant women have back pain. And ALL pregnant women have stomach cramps. What a frigging moron I can be. But its because this child is very much wanted and welcome in our lives.

Next is the diagnostic ultrasound and blood test - this will tell us about birth defects like Down's Syndrome and such. If it's good, we'll know immediately. If it's questionable, there will be more tests.

This one is on my birthday, can you guess how I'll be doing until then? Better than the last couple of days to be sure, but I think I won't relax with this kid until...well probably until it's an adult...actually not, I'll relax when I'm dead.

The reality is this is a pretty cool ride to be on, today was a thrill after the car climbed to the top of the track over the last few days and started plunging down when I saw the heart beating.

I love Karna, and I love this child. I am damn near giddy with anticipation to meet it and hold it and love it and teach it and watch it grow and make mistakes and succeed.

Just keep that heart beating kid, I'll see you in a few months. Then we'll have some really great times - you, your mother and me.

Love to all,
Ty

Ok, this is the sucky part! I promise not to complain too much during the first trimester! The prometrium the doctor put me on for increasing my levels of progesterone as an at-risk pregnancy is making this a most inconvenient and miserable time. The nausea alone is nearly a deal breaker. In less than 24 hours I went from barely noticing my nausea to having every smell, every taste, not to mention water making me want to puke. I found that only two things don't make me want to vomit...Chick'fil'a sandwiches and bean/cheese burritos...not super healthy, I know! For the first 4 days I'd get super dizzy after taking my medication. So dizzy I couldn't turn my head without wanting to pass out! Thankfully, I have either adjusted to the meds or eliminated the symptom by not taking them on an empty stomach. When water isn't making my tastebuds feel/taste like they have a coating of burnt plastic over them it makes me bloat up like I'm 7 months not 7 weeks! Everything I consume makes me want to belch, but cannot, and causes all my clothes to make me feel like a tied off sausage. For over a week now I have been pretty uncomfortable, but I did manage to make a new bestest friend in Maalox! Boy does that help with all the above discomforts!!!!

Next week we go back to the doctor and hopefully Ty will be able to hear the heart beat of this little bugger.

Despite Uncle Dr. Chris' assurances of a little girl, I think this one will be a boy. Just a little family history that gives me the feeling. Boys are dominant in my family (11 boys/7 girls, and those are just the first cousins, nevermind the 13 male second cousins that I have never even met) and statistics like that mean more to me than those Chris gave us last week (no offense!). Ty wants to know the sex right away so as soon as we find out we will let you know...Frankly I don't care, I just like to make Ty squirm with thoughts of a teenage girl!!!

Hope you are all well...or at least doing better than me!

Love ya all!

K.

A Hint on DemonSpawn's Real Name

OK, so we'll tease a bit. The name for our child can be found here - WikiPedia Link. The name is on this list, regardless of gender (no "sir" is not part of the name). Can you find it? Do you have an idea? Leave a comment and tell us!

Oh yeah, we're going to "George Forman" all our kid's middle names - for boys it will be Christopher, for girls, some feminine variant of Christopher. Hit the poll to vote for your favorite girl version*.

Love to all,
Ty

* Please note your vote won't count for s#!t in the end, but it's nice to see what everyone thinks.

Baby's First Picture

Here it is...mugging for the camera...Baby Robbins, or the DemonSpawn as we call it.

Yesterday Karna had her first baby appointment and her OB/GYN prescribed Prometrium; when she filled the prescription, the first warning on the label is: "Not to be taken by pregnant women." Hmmm...not a reassuring start to this medical relationship. That made us look up the drug we used to help get pregnant; Femara: "Can cause birth defects, not to be used for infertility." Holy s#1t! Now we're (ok, I'm) really freaking out!

We (OK, I) called Dr. Uncle Chris last night with some questions after Karna's first appointment, and he calmed us (OK, me) down. Then he consulted an OB associate (maybe he was a bit freaked out too?) who told us Karna's doc is doing great. The Femara dose was so low for so short a time, it won't have an effect on the kid, and the progesterone is meant to keep the kid inside (Karna had a lower natural progesterone count). So we (OK, she and the kid) are doing great!!

So this artistic black and white rendering of DemonSpawn tells us a few things:

• There's only one sack, so it's not a twin from the Femara.
• It could be an identical twin, but that's not likely unless in this picture DemonSpawn is hiding it's sibling.
• The kid already has a heartbeat of 118 beat/minute, Karna heard it, so that's about the same as my heart rate these days.
• All this is really a good sign!!

Thanks to Dr. Uncle Chris (I only use the Dr. when I ask him for medical advice) for the info, I feel much better now. Oh and we'll thank him too for giving us his consummate statistical conclusion that this is a girl DemonSpawn. I will reserve judgement on that one until the next set of Polaroids. Until then, it is still an IT!! But it's our it and we're proud of it.

Love to all,
Ty

First Appointment

As Ty said I had my first appointment today. The doctor sprung an "internal" ultrasound on me so I didn't even have the chance to call Ty to let him know until after it was all said and done. Ty and I discussed which of our 2 names would be best for this baby if it is only going to be one, but we won't tell you just yet!! We are at almost 4mm, which makes us 6 weeks. The doctor gave us a due date of June 4...just in time for Father's Day!! Hooray!!

I still haven't told my family or work yet, although the news was 'leaked' at the firehouse, and I am anxious to say something to my family, but the doctor suggested waiting a few more months, as I had originally suggested to Ty. It may make a nice Christmas announcement to my family.

The morning sickness has been pretty easy so far, but with the addition of the progesterone prescription it is likely to get worse. The doctor suggested that I may experience symptoms similar to PMS and be grouchy and irritable as well as have cramps while taking the meds. He also thought that I'd have increased nausea. I'm not looking forward to that, but hey, what can you do. I signed on for this wholeheartedly!

Love to all,
Karna

Dubious Data?

Karna went in for her first doctor's appointment and we are now officially, medically pregnant. I am thrilled, but ultimately it's a mixed experience for me for a few reasons:

• I am ecstatic for the verification (but I didn't really need it).
• The Doctor did an ultrasound and only saw one baby, we were hoping for twins.
• The baby's already got a heart rate of 118 beats per minute! This is really exciting.
• I missed the first ultrasound. This has me really quite upset, we though this appointment would just be blood draws.
• The doctor told Karna she shouldn't tell anyone she's pregnant because of her high risk for spontaneous abortion. He even gave her a prescription for progesterone to boost her hormone levels so her body doesn't reject the pregnancy.

So the ultimate outcome is that we are pregnant and so far everything looks great. I am thrilled! I guess more than anything else I will be more conscious of the road were on and not take anything for granted.

I will keep you updated. Love to all,
Ty

The Surreptitious Start

This morning started with two pink lines on a plastic stick. The Robbins couple is to become the Robbins Family. As I left the house for work, the world seemed to be filled with good omens:

• I looked at the sky as I got in the truck and it was still dark, I saw Orion in the sky - always a favorite of mine - in fact Karna and I saw Orion and talked about it on our first date.
• The clouds were low over Indian Hills, also a favorite of mine.
• As I drove into Denver the sunrise was an amazing, deep, vibrant orange.

I am a very fortunate person. There have always been two things I wanted to be, a husband and a father. For a long time, I thought my first failure as a husband would prevent me from becoming a father, then I got the ultimate do-over in Karna.

No two people were EVER more suited to each other as we are. We each went through many of our own personal trials and came out the other end wiser, but cynical. When we met both of us were almost resigned to a fate of single-dom and we were preparing for it. In my case my father even started counseling me toward being single indefinitely - trying to prepare me for that possibility - after seeing my many failures (disasters even) in dating. But the reality is that Karna is my perfect partner and I am blessed to have found her.

We've been trying to start our family for about a year now. Two months ago Karna asked her OB/GYN about our lack of success and he gave us some assistance, not fertility per se but some hormonal help. The kind help of that can apparently result in twins, which is our goal.

This post is surreptitious because most of you won't be informed of this new blog until a little while later. Karna is a realist and doesn't want to get any one's hopes up until we know for sure. There are a few people who have suspicions.

Even if the 99.4% accurate test is wrong, I don't care. The feeling of this possibility is amazing and Karna and I WILL have a family together. Given this wonderful news, I had to get all my thoughts down and this is the perfect way - so we can share with our friends and family. You should all know soon enough...

Much love to all,
Ty