Baby's first picture

July 10 was the date of our first appointment with the OB/GYN. We went hoping to have an ultrasound, and - at 11 weeks along - we really thought we would. But we had heard from some of our friends that at the first appointment, they don't always do an ultrasound. We went in and Stella and I were very happy that the receptionist had Stella sign a consent form to have an ultrasound done that day.

When the doctor started the scan, it did not take long before we saw our beautiful baby jumping all over the place. He (or she) was extremely active just moving all over the place. It was the most incredible thing I have ever seen. We both just started laughing. The appointment went very well. Everything checks out and we are on schedule for our January 24th due date.

Breaking the news

From the moment we had found out that we were pregnant, we thought the Fourth of July would be a great time to have everyone get together to share the news. We could plan the party for the fourth to celebrate and to show off the new homestead, and no one would have any idea of the real reason.

So the next plan had to be how we were going to break the news. We poured over tons of ideas and finally came up with custom printed Yankee Candles. We put them in red, white, and blue bags and handed them out as 'door prizes' to all of our guests.

We had two big moments that day. The first was with our parents and one of our brothers (the other two couldn't come). We had them come earlier than everyone else so we could tell them first. We started acting like we were getting annoyed that the other party guests weren't there yet, so we would pass out the gifts to kill time until they arrived. One thing I learned is that you shouldn't give old people something small to read. It took them all a minute to figure out what the candles said. But when they did, they were all very excited.

Once our other friends got there, we shared with them the same way and everyone was extremely happy for us. We had a great day of eating, watching fireworks, and chilling.

Well...we're having a baby

Our journey began the morning of the Indy 500 (the day before Memorial Day). We were between houses during a move to Columbus. We were staying at a friend's house and my wife and I planned to take the pregnancy test that morning. My wife woke me up and said she had taken it and it was time to check the result. We went in to the bathroom, looked at the plus sign and just freaked out. We were so incredibly happy, but we had to resist our urge to run through the house yelling.

The rest of the day was a little euphoric as we thought about what is to come and tried to hide our excitement from family as we spent the whole day with them.