Preggers....

I have a secret.

Actually, it is known to a good number of people, however I've been forbidden to discuss this topic in public forums, as I might jinx the process. However, the levy has been lifted now that we are past the first trimester, where 1/8 to 1/4 of women miscarry.

Yes, Bryn-Erinn and I are pregnant. Well to be technically sound, Bryn-Erinn is pregnant with our first child. We affectionately call this little blessing, "Baby G ". We are very excited about this great miracle that has entered our life. We are currently 13 weeks and 2/7 days. We have already heard the heart beat, a little whoosh going about 150 beats a minute on a Doppler ultrasound. Bryn-Erinn already has a little baby bump. In fact it was her who taught me the rubber band trick, mentioned in a previous posting, which I used when my own belly was swollen and enlarged.

It hasn't been the smoothest pregnancy. Due to my schedule, and who knows what else, our little bundle of joy was delayed in the production process. That was obviously overcome, and we are past the days of watching "Juno" and stating, "We wish that we were 'preggers' ".

The other major challenges have been that Bryn-Erinn has had almost constant nausea for the past 10 weeks, but thank goodness no vomiting. The fact that she was feeling ill helped many people at our church guess far before this announcement about Bryn-Erinn's grava state. It was deduced early on by our Elders Quorum president, Reed, that she had the "nine month flu". The little tab of Zofran (ondansetron) has been a Godsend for her nausea. She has also had a fair amount of fatigue. The crystal meth has been good in giving her the burst of energy that she needs from day to day - I'm joking of course. My little episode of appendicitis, was definitely ill-timed, but I am back to about 85-90%, so that has been overcome.

The Grandmas were the first to know officially. We told them on Mother's day as their gift this year. We have been tracking Baby "G"'s progress through the web and a gestation calendar. Baby "G" (G is for Gourley) is now about the size of a credit card, weighs about as much as a magic marker, has little fingers and toes, a good strong heart, and is starting to move. Bryn-Erinn has been playing the piano almost every day in hopes to overcome my lack of musicality. I've been telling Baby "G" techy/science stories to make her well rounded. Bryn-Erinn had a dream before finding out she was pregnant, that our first would be a girl. We are anxiously waiting to find out if the dream was prophetic or not. Her dreams often are on the prophetic side, but she never knows which ones are until things start happening.

Of course we know that we aren't out of the woods yet. We have had two people close to us, who were due within weeks of Bryn-Erinn, who miscarried within days of each other. Our hearts go out to them. Needless to say, those tragic events left Bryn-Erinn feeling even less confident, and desperate to hear the heartbeat again.

We are very happy. In celebration I added a pregnancy ticker to the blog. Our due date has been stated as anywhere from December 19-23, 2009.

Sick...

When I see people in the hospital, and they are chewing me out for one think or another, I always try to remember that they aren't feeling their best. This hit home this last weekend. Mike Wilson, a friend of ours from Portland, came to the twin cities for his internal medicine interview. Saturday night, we went out to eat at one of our favorite restaurants, A taste of India. It was a wonderful meal as always, and very tasty. After dinner I went to work -I'm working the night shift. I hadn't been at work very long, 2-5 hours, when I started to have the runs. As the night progressed I started to feel more and more sick to my stomach. By morning I asked my senior resident if she wouldn't mind if I left a hour early. I could barely walk to my car with out feeling like I needed to wretch my guts out. I made it home without any events. I felt like if I could just make it home to sleep I could let this all pass and have a good day off (I get Sunday nights off). I slept for a good 4 hours or so, but then I awoke feeling like I needed to have another bowel movement. I make it to the restroom, however the previous night's dinner had found a new way to exit and I expelled my stomach's contents into the bath tub, much to Mike's dismay as he was getting ready to shower. To my surprise this caused Bryn to go into fits of giggles, as she rubbed my back and gave comforting words. Mike offered to wash his hair in the kitchen sink, as Bryn helped me wash out the tub. I spent the next 8-10 hours after that with a Home Depot bucket and my bilious emesis. Some time during that night I was finally able to keep some water down, which was good, as Bryn and I were on the edge of taking me in for IV fluids at the emergency room. I spent the next day trying to rehydrate and later that night I ate some soft food for the first time since that fateful dinner and the loss of 5 pounds. My stomach still aches from this episode, and Bryn would attest to my pathetic weak state. In my medical opinion, I would guess that this was a bacteria with a preformed toxin, due to the quick onset and duration of 36-48 hours.
On a happier note, for the moments that I wasn't gazing into the bottom of my bucket, we had 5-7 inches of new snow. I also included some of the beautiful ice formation on some of our older windows.