Technology is Amazing

That picture you see to the left is my little girl. Look at those big eyes and that cute little nose. She is sucking on her little wrist and, at one point, we could see her sticking out her little tongue. Yep, technology is amazing.

The third ultrasound was yesterday, and these awesome 4D images are one of the benefits. We get to see our baby and get some idea as to what she will look like. She is freaking adorable, and I love her so much.

On a funny note, when the ultrasound technician was taking measurements, she had to measure the spine 3 times! Seriously, the spine went all the way across the bottom of the screen. She simply stated, "That is one long spine, and I have been doing this for years." My little girl is going to be a snake - a beautiful snake!

Take a look at the other pictures by clicking on this link.

Thoughts on a Blessing

I have been thinking quite a bit about the blessing of my daughter. Things are different now that we know we are going to be having a little girl. For a boy you expect, or hope for, certain things in their life. For a girl, those things are different. I am going to write down my thoughts now so that Jocelyn will know those things that I hope for her to enjoy as a blessing in her life.

To my beautiful daughter,

I would bless you in this life with the gift of discernment - that you would make wise choices in all things; especially in your choice of friends. I would bless you with a hunger for knowledge and a profound joy in the undertaking of learning, both formally and through practical experience - that you will be innately inquisitive and desire to learn in all aspects of your life. I would bless you with the desire to be a strong example to any future siblings, that you would be slow to anger and quick to forgive. I would bless you with a strong desire to know your Heavenly Father, to have a passion for the gospel and a desire to be a faithful and strong member of the church. I would bless you with health and strength. I would bless you with a companion who honors the priesthood and is worthy to take you to the temple. I would bless you with the knowledge that your mother and father love you very much, and that your well-being is paramount in our lives. But most importantly, I would have you remember that your mother and I have waited many years for your choice spirit to enter our home, and that we will do everything in our stewardship to help you hold to the iron rod and keep you on a path that will return you to your Heavenly Father.

You are my daughter, my firstborn, and I love you very much. I hope that you see in me a strong example of how a woman should be treated as you watch the interactions between me and your mother. I will always be there for you.

I love you.

The First Movement

Well, the first movement I could feel, anyway...

Last night, I got to feel my little girl moving around for the very first time. Lisa has put my hands on her belly so many times inquiring, "Did you feel? You had to feel that!" To which I always replied, "Nope, I got nothing." But this time, I finally felt her. It wasn't a massive kick, just a little tapping. Though I can only imagine that the kicking that I feel will get stronger from here. I seriously wonder what she is doing in there? In my head, I always liken the womb to what I have seen on television. You know that stupid movie, 'Look Who's Talking'? Yeah, in my mind, the womb is a place with a soft light and a perfect venue for comedic interplay. Of course, my little girl sounds nothing like Bruce Willis, but I imagine her having a little voice that makes some pretty funny comments. I always envision Jocelyn grabbing that umbilical cord and, while tugging, demanding, "Hey, let's get a little apple juice down here!" But my favorite mental movie is of her seeing Lisa's bladder, grabbing it and giving it a good squeeze. Think how fun that must be? "Hey, this bag keeps filling up! Ima give it a good squeeze." Then when Lisa goes to pee, I imagine Jocelyn kinking the line like a hose so nothing comes out. Yep, that's the interplay that is going on in my brain.

Anyway, my little girl is on her way to being quite the swimmer...

Babies Need a Lot of Stuff!

At least, that's what Babys 'R Us would have you believe. We went to that behemoth store last weekend to complete a registry for baby items. Now that we know what we're having, we can plan accordingly. I had no idea how much junk you could buy for a baby. Of course, the baby couldn't give a hill of beans, but they sure know how to market to the parents.

In the couple of hours we were there, we registered for a car seat and stroller, a crib, baby monitor and myriad other items. However, Lisa went nuts with clothes! We indoctrinate little girls early that they need lots of clothes, I guess... Lisa registered for quite a few articles of couture, even including a pair of sparkly jeans on the registry. Me? I got to use the magic gun under careful supervision. The only items I managed to get in without her seeing included baby gates and a cute little brown and pink stuffed puppy.

I have a feeling people aren't going to buy half of the items on our list, especially since it's a little girl. After all, who goes to baby showers? Women. What do women like to buy? Clothes. I rest my case.

It's a Girl!

We had our second ultrasound yesterday and it was with nervous anticipation that I waited for the appointment time to arrive. I left work early to head over to the doctor's office, and we were seated in the room and Lisa lifted her shirt and lay back on the table and the ultrasound technician did her work. We waited with excitement to see what our little blessing was to be - a rambunctious little boy or a beautiful little girl. For so long, Lisa has thought of this baby as being a little boy. However, last week, she changed her tune and confided in me that she thought it was a girl. Of course, this change was due to her looking at little girl clothes while she was out shopping...

Meticulously, the technician moved the wand across the expanse of my pregnant bride's belly. Measurements were taken, movement was seen. We saw little feet, a little face, hemispheres of the brain and then two tiny little butt-cheeks. When that little bottom came into view, I exclaimed, "Is that butt?!" The tech. confirmed my perspicacious insight and asked, "Would you like to know what it is?" To which I replied, "It's a girl. There is no twig and no berries to be seen!" Yep, we are having a little girl. We were handed a few images of the ultrasound and directed to wait for the doctor outside. While we were waiting, Lisa asked if I was 'okay'. I was definitely okay, but there was just one problem - we had a boy's name finalized, but were on the fence as to what we would name a girl. I told her I didn't know what to call it now that it was a little girl, and we decided right then and there that her name would be Jocelyn Kathleen Orrell. We had debated between Abigail Laurene and Jocelyn Kathleen, but we made the decision and now little Jocelyn will be the first child with which we will be blessed. Here are some images of my little girl - I will have to have a little talk with her about modesty based on her flashing us in one of these images...

That John Denver is Full of Crap...

So everyone kept telling me that the second trimester was the honeymoon trimester... the nausea goes away, she will not be as tired and she will be as horny as a toad. Well, one of the three is okay, I guess. She still gets sick and she is still pretty tired.

I feel so bad for her. I am starting to understand the humour behind the movies where the wife says to her husband, "You did this to me!" I don't know how she does it, but she is a trooper. I am beginning to understand just how big of a sacrifice this is, and I appreciate her more and more for it. If men had the babies, we would call in sick for 40 weeks. I am the biggest baby when I am sick - just leave me in a corner to die. But Lisa is so much stronger than I am. I guess this process is what forges a woman into a mother; it is what gives her that super-human ability to completely subdue her own needs to look out for her children. I think I am starting to understand what the saying 'moms don't get sick days.'

Still, every day I hope that the nausea will magically disappear. I was told by a couple of people at the office that week 14 is magical - all the sickness goes away. I feel like Harry and Lloyd on the way to Colorado - "That John Denver is full of crap!"

Bachelor Week: Take 2

My sister-in-law, Amy, is off to college at BYU-Idaho, and Lisa is taking the trek with her parents up there to get her settled into her new digs. I am staying behind because work obligations are such that it is not easy for me to get away at the beginning of any given month.

Lisa left early this morning, and I already miss her. I REALLY miss her, like back in the day when we were dating and I was living in California and she was here in Arizona. This sucks. She probably won't be home until the end of next week. My plan is take care of cleaning the house, since that is what I do when I am alone, and then play a very unhealthly amount of video games. Luckily, I just got the new Batman: Arkham Asylum, and Beatles: Rock Band comes out on Tuesday, so that will provide a welcome diversion. But I hate sleeping alone. Like I said, this sucks.

Oh well, at least her parents can enjoy the sound that is Lisa's nausea. I don't think they have an appreciation based on just the stories I have told them - they need to experience it for themselves.

On the plus side, I have to say that this whole 'being a parent' thing is a piece of cake - she always takes the baby with her!

Worth the Wait

So, back in July, I arrived home from work to find my beautiful wife doing some baby research online. I walked into the office, and she pleasantly greeted me with, "Do you want to buy me a present?" I replied, in typical Husband-of-the-Year fashion with, "Why would I want to buy you a present?"

That didn't seem to faze her as she reached over and grabbed a small catalog from a little outfit named Uncommon Goods. What she found in this little catalog was a onesie, and matching hat, that simply stated, "I was worth the wait." Well, talk about a way to melt your heart, but not in that annoying, gooey, contrived-chick-flick-kind of way... I still am not so sure about this whole baby thing. It is still so new to me, and without there being any indication that Lisa is actually pregnant other than the nausea and the long-since-erased digital read-out on a pregnancy test, I still sit in a state of bewilderment. I suppose this is to be expected. I was getting all of the attention - soon, I won't. I have no clue how to handle a child - no siblings on whom I could have practiced, no real interaction at all. Why would a truly loving God give me a child? Oh, wait, He is giving the two of us a child. I will be just as helpless as the baby when it is first born. I bet Lisa had no idea that she was going to have to teach two individuals at the same time. Hopefully I will be a quick study.

This little bundle of joy will be worth the wait. I am sure of that. But for me, right now, to feel love towards it is something I am not able to do. Perhaps it is a guarded nature to be prepared in case something catastrophic should happen, but I just don't feel that love yet, and that scares the hell out of me. It makes me wonder if this is normal, or if I am truly so hopelessly selfish and made of stone that I am incapable? I hope not.

They Found Him! They Found Him!!

So the other day - Sunday, for those of you keeping score at home - Lisa and I got up early as usual to get ready for church. We enjoyed a little breakfast and watched a little pre-church TV. Around 8:40, Lisa decided she needed to lay down "for 10 minutes". No problem, church starts at 10am, and I think it is bad karma to mess with a pregnant woman.

So, with the remote in hand, I flip through the channels and come across Air Force One. I sit back and relax, realizing full well that we are never going to make it to church. Around 10:40, Lisa emerges from the bedroom, bleary-eyed and semi-panicked. "I can't believe I slept that long!", she says, "We can still make it to the last 2 hours!!"

I begrudgingly get up and jump in the shower. About 5 minutes later, my sweet, pregnant wife bursts through the bathroom door jubilantly exclaiming, "They found him! They found him!!" To which I, with a head covered in shampoo, reply, "Who found who?" She has tears in her eyes and explains, "The president! They found the president! They were all clapping and cheering!" I look over the shower curtain (a benefit of being so tall) to see her wiping tears from her eyes. I ask with a certain degree of disbelief, "Really?" She confirms with the simple phrase, "Sorry, I'm just a little pregnant right now."

Who would have thought Harrison Ford could have that kind of effect on a pregnant woman?

Eating For Two

Those who know me pretty well no that I am not a big eater. At least, I don't eat a bunch during a meal. Instead, I spread out my consumption of mass quantities over the course of a day - I am a grazer. But pregnancy has obviously done something to me.

My boss mentioned that back in the day (she's in her late 60's), it wasn't too uncommon for women to gain a lot of weight when carrying a child. After all, they were eating for two. With advances in medical science and a stronger grasp of nutrition that has been acquired over the years, women now know that they don't need to gain a ton of weight, and that too much weight is a bad idea no matter how you look at it.

But they don't tell this to the fathers. Or I missed the lesson that day. Why? Well, last night Lisa made salmon and jasmine rice for dinner. She wasn't quite able to finish hers and I had long since cleaned my plate and had dished up some more rice. She offered me the rest of her salmon. I declined since, after all, she's the pregnant one and she should eat it. She assured me that she was full, and dished her leftover onto my plate. It was gone in probably 2 minutes. Seriously, I ate almost an entire salmon and three servings of rice. But that's not the weirdest part!

Probably 90 minutes later I decided I needed a snack, and a big bowl of Lucky Charms was going to make me happy. Keep in mind that we are whole milk drinkers. Anything less just isn't milk.

Lisa pointed out my mass consumption and laughed. I seriously never eat like that. Granted, I won't make a habit of it as it just isn't my personality. But who knows? Maybe this is the time in my life where I balloon up like the Michelin Man and become a fat lard. Nah... having thought about it, I decided that idea sucks. But still it was enough to make both of us laugh.

Bachelor Week!!

Lisa has tickets to go to the tapings of the finale for So, You Think You Can Dance. This show is, by far, Lisa's favorite. No amount of nausea could keep her from this opportunity. She is going with her sister, Amy, and Amy's friend, Ginger. Lisa's taking the kid and I will have the whole house to myself. No nauseous wife, no crying kid... wait... scratch that.

Generally speaking, when Lisa leaves town to have some girl time with her sister or her cousin, I always have the best-laid plans to do nothing but sit around, eat pizza and play video games. I think that of the 5 trips Lisa has taken, from recent memory, I managed to actually fall into a video-game-induced torpor, well, none of those times. This time would prove no different. Generally, I get distracted working around the house. I do a good, deep cleaning of the floors, I scrub the kitchen and work in the yard. I take care of any maintenance items and by the time it's all done and I actually sit down with my friend Mr. Xbox, Lisa is calling to say she is on her way home.

However, this time was probably a 50/50 split. Like any good kid, I did all of my chores before I went outside to play. In a quick bit of honest disclosure bordering on stupidity, I was a Friday night homework kid. Yep, I would get home from school on Friday and do my homework that night, thereby leaving me a free weekend. Joke's on me though, as my Sunday was usually spent alone while all of my friends were doing their homework. Hmmmm... explains why I didn't date very much. Now that I've depressed myself with my lack of middle-school social life, I have to re-assess my own thoughts on when our child should do homework... who am I kidding, this kid will totally take after Lisa! Sunday night (or Monday morning) it is!

Baby's First Photo

So last Monday was the first ultrasound, and our first glimpse at our now olive-sized bundle of joy. This first visit was basically to set a due date and check the heartbeat. Yep, the little one is quite the metronome, with a normal heart-rate of 160bpm. When the sonographer flipped the audio switch and we could hear the steady bum-bum-bum-bum (it sounds like someone hitting one of those balloon-on-a-rubber-band punching balls in an aqueous environment), Lisa reached down and held my hand. In my eyes were - no tears. Sorry ladies - I truly am made of stone. My joy doesn't generally manifest itself that way - ask me again in 12 weeks when we have the second ultrasound, or again in another 7 months when the little one comes into the world.

However, I really think it would be funny to bring an MP3 player with some small speakers to the next ultrasound and play some cheesy music from a movie like 'Father of the Bride', or perhaps '9 Months' to play once they get the image on screen. Yeah, Lisa thinks I have problems. My only response is oh well - that's 50% of this youngster's gene pool. But think of all the fun this kid will be? With my odd way of looking at the world and wit mixed with her keen ability to communicate in a way that is only 'Lisa', this kid is going to provide hours of entertainment. Seriously - I expect my little one to emerge not crying, but rather exclaiming, "Hey everyone, come see how good I look!"

Anyway, the ultrasound was a success - even though it took a grand total of 5 minutes. Who knows how much my out-of-pocket is going to be, but I am sure it will feel like the financial-equivalent of prison rape. Next time, I am bringing popcorn, since they put it on this huge screen and bring the lights down low. And I have to get me one of those machines. I don't know what practical use it will be outside of a medical setting, but it has way too many buttons and gizmos for me to not want one. I would be trying to get ultrasonic images of everything! Check out the first picture of my little olive. Don't you just love how they have to put an arrow pointing to the baby? Yeah, there were three other angles that were way better, but I guess they have to take pictures akin to capturing Sasquatch - even if you look closely, it's still a blurry, fuzzy mess.

The Baby is Being So Mean!!

That's the common complaint I hear from Lisa during the early stages of this pregnancy, and it makes me laugh every time she says it - mostly because she says it in the cutest voice. Me, being the loving husband that I am, always answer with a very compassionate, "You wanted this." I know - husband of the year material. And yes, I want this baby too. As I have mentioned to Lisa and others, I am tickled to death about this. Yes, I said 'tickled' - so what? But it is times like these that I hold to my usual motto - 'Being a Guy Rules!' I get a healthy dose of the joy with zero nauseous side-effects.

Luckily, her nausea has been rather tame. According to her, she feels lucky that it is relatively mild. She hasn't been as sick as her mother used to get during her child-bearing years. For that, we are both grateful.

Unfortunately, last week, a woman with whom I work miscarried. I don't even want to consider that possibility for our little raspberry (that's the current size of the baby, according to Lisa. I feel like a man walking through a farmer's market more than experiencing his wife's first pregnancy). In my head, I know that these types of things happen, and part of me is remaining on alert until we get out of this first trimester. With Lisa's past PCOS, our difficulty conceiving and this being her first pregnancy, mixed with my statistical way of thinking, I would consider Lisa's pregnancy to be on the side of greater risk. I wouldn't say high-risk, just riskier than others.

How would I react if we were to experience a miscarriage? It scares me to think of such a dire outcome to a very jubiliant time. I don't want to think about it, but feel it is my responsibility to have the strength to be her comfort should that be the plan of our Heavenly Father. I pray that it will all go smoothly and that we will be meeting our new addition in another 32 weeks, but I will remain on guard until I know he or she is healthy, safe and developing normally.

On a more amusing and upbeat note, Lisa asked me to scold the little baby last night for being so mean to her. I pointed to her tummy and firmly rebuked, "Bad baby." She's already turning me into the disciplinarian.

That We Might Have Joy...

On Friday, June 26th, 2009, the answer to a fervent prayer was answered. The exciting dream became a reality - we are pregnant. Yes, I am a fully functioning male, able to put a baby in the woman that I love. Lisa and I have been trying to get pregnant for 6 years. I am going to be a father; Lisa - a mother. The realization of a growing, eternal family unit finally coming to fruition.

Lisa told me in the funniest way. On that fateful Friday, we met for lunch at Pei Wei. I arrived ahead of her and was waiting outside on a bench. When Lisa arrived, she noticed me and came running towards me. I noticed the bright pink hue of the shirt she was wearing, and I squinted to read it in the blinding summer sun of Arizona. The shirt declared proudly, "I'm not fat! I'M KNOCKED UP!" She threw her arms around me, kissed me and produced the positive pregnancy test from her purse. She drew back, looked into my eyes and questioned, "No tears?"

I guess I am made of stone - but in that moment, I was filled with thoughts and emotions with the realization that our lives were changing eternally and for the better. In my mind, I thought of the words of my patriarchal blessing (to be shared in another post); I thought of the wonderful joy that will be blessing this choice heavenly spirit that our Heavenly Father has chosen to place in our care. I thought of the struggles, the happiness - the fears and hopes that such a change brings. In the end I was, and am, completely ecstatic.

I am creating this blog as a clandestine journey into my thoughts, emotions and feelings as they progress through this pregnancy. My desire is to share this with Lisa once our child is born - that she may have a journal that will hopefully shed a light on the emotions that I don't always freely share or express.

I love my eternal companion with all of my heart. I am so happy to be taking this journey with her. I am completely in awe of the concept of being trusted with such a special gift. I hope that I can live up to my potential as a husband, father and companion. It's going to be one heck of a ride!