Sad news to relate

I'm very sad to share that "Daisy" is not going to be joining us for the party of life. She suffered from a very rare infection to her still-developing brain that was too much to survive with.  

We're going to take a few months to grieve and then try again. We (S and I), want a child of our own. We love each other so very much, and we just wanted to spread that love out a little more. I guess anytime you take that step, you take this risk. I have some wonderful friends coming to help us this week just get through things. So don't worry too much. Both of us are very hurt, but we're completely together on this. 

 I'm so sorry to have to tell you this after we got you so excited. We were so very close to that third trimester and thought we were out of any danger. We'd actually passed every diagnostic ultrasound, blood test, etc with flying colors. This was a complete shock. But our new home is beautiful; full of birds, sunshine, and fruit trees, so we have a good place to heal up. 

Baby's first pictures

I meant to get these up first, but well, all the things you have to get taken care of when you're having a baby...the pictures are from the 6 week ultrasound, when we first found out for sure that we had something in there. I know, I can hardly ever figure out what these things are either. But if you look closely at them, you'll see a white speck in the bean eye (for lack of a better term) in the top one. That's actually the "flicker", the first visible sign of a heartbeat.

Follow the baby blog..

We've had a few requests for email updates when blog posts are made.  Only took me a few weeks to look through all the settings, but I've got it figured out now. If you'd like to get an email when we post, send me your email address (please folks, not here of course!) and I'll add you to the list. We're excited so many of you are keeping up with the baby news, and look forward to sharing so much of our joy with you.

We're Half Way There!

Had my 20 week check-up this morning and everything looks great. The doctor says I'm doing a good job and the baby is doing a great job of getting big! Last night M had me press on this area on my belly where she thought the baby was hanging out and sure enough, the baby pushed back!!

So excited!

Baby heartbeat

As everyone knows already, my wife is a worrywart. In an attempt to ease her anxiety a little, I found a surprisingly affordable fetal doppler monitor on Amazon. This thing is fantastic. It comes with one headset, two plug-ins (so you can both listen if you want), and a line-out cable to my MacBook. All this for less than $30 is a bargain I can get behind.

In any case, we are NOT using this for any sort of medical advice or assistance. This is simply to listen in and let my wife relax in comfort and hear the baby. I recorded a 30 second clip this morning and uploaded it in both .mp3 and .wav files for my technically-challenged friends and family.

My apologies for the scratchy sound, I'm still figuring out how to clean up the extraneous noises. The little one was moving around quite a bit this morning, and you can hear through the clip as she spins and moves closer and further from the monitor. Best sound is about 18-20 seconds in. :)

http://www.stanford.edu/~mlcook/babyheart.mp3

http://www.stanford.edu/~mlcook/babyheart.wav

Mommy or Mama

Who is Mommy? Who is Mama? Puzzling question. I think we've decided that S will be Mama and I'm going to be Mommy. But then again the baby could decide that for us later.

I've asked every lesbian couple with babies I know. "What do you want the baby to call you?"

The real problem here is that neither of us has any emotional stake in either name. We just want something easy for the baby to say, just like any other good parents. That's the reason we went with the name for this blog. Mommy or Mama. I do worry that Mommy sounds more like what the kid(s) are screaming when they are late for soccer practice from the back of the minivan. But I think as long as I can avoid the minivan trap, I'll be ok.

Anyone have any suggestions?

***MAJOR SPOILER ALERT**

Don't continue down the page if you don't want to know. During yesterday's ultrasound we found out the sex of the baby. Scroll down ONLY if you wish to know.
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
` Its a girl. She was too shy to show her face, so we'll have to go back in a couple weeks to get pictures to go with.

Like running horses

That's what I read my baby's heartbeat would sound like. This morning we had our 16 week appointment and we were worried that the doctor wouldn't remember we hadn't heard the heartbeat yet, but she did. It sounded to me just like a speedy heartbeat, which immediately brought tears to my eyes. Next big milestone is the "quickening" when I'll finally be able to fell the baby rolling around. I already know it's happening, I just can't feel it yet. I can hardly wait.

Time is going by fast for me and excruciatingly slow for M. I just hope it isn't so fast I can't remember it later.

Thwoomp. Thwoomp.

Today we heard our baby's heartbeat for the very first time. We've been seeing it on ultrasounds for 10 weeks, but hadn't actually heard it. S was needing some reassurance, since it has been several weeks since the last ultrasound, and was really hoping to hear it today. After running through the basics, we thought the doctor was going to send us on our way. Then she pulled out the little speaker and said "Ok, let's check up on the little one."  Yay! S hurriedly assumed the belly-up position. She put the little wand on S's belly, and almost instantaneously we heard it. Thwoomp. Thwoomp. Thwoomp. I think it was the very best sound I've ever heard in my life. I simply can't stop smiling today.

Where did the sperm come from?

Where did the sperm come from?

Wow. You wouldn't believe the number of people who have asked this as the very first question after we announced the pregnancy to them. Not "How are you feeling?" or "Congratulations, do you know if its a boy or a girl?", but "Where did the sperm come from?"

Um, I'm pretty sure I learned all about where sperm comes from in 4th grade health. That's the same time I learned about menstruation, pregnancy, and boobs. As I recall, sperm are produced in the scrotum through a process known as meiosis by the mega-millions. Its virtually a sperm lottery down in a healthy sac. Sperm come from balls, and are ejaculated through the penis. A speedy one or two make it all the way through the woman's fallopian tubes to find an egg.

Now what I guess they MEAN is "Hey, you don't have any nuts, you're a girl! How'd you manage to knock up the old lady?" I also find myself wondering if they'd ask the same question of a guy they knew was sterile from a bicycle accident in childhood. I've been patiently explaining that we used an anonymous donor from a sperm bank. But what I really want to say is "You don't know where sperm comes from? Ok, is it finally time for your birds and bees conversation?"

Surprise surprise

I've heard stories about women who on their first try got pregnant. I'm not that lucky, but after nearly a year of trying we learned in February we were pregnant. I don't really have words to describe how exciting this is other than to say it's like nothing I could have imagined. Our bundle of joy is scheduled to enter out world sometime around November 2nd. We decided to create a blog to tell a bit about our experiences and to share our joy.

For now we survived our first trimester morning sickness free (thank you very much!!) and we've entered the supposedly blissful second trimester. We'll see how that goes.