Happy Halloween!

My creative and artistic hubby decided to make this costume for me and the baby this year (mask was purchased, shirt was designed and painted by my talented husband):

Trick or treat!  I love Halloween!  Time to pass out candy to the little goblins who come by.  We usually get close to 150 kids at our house every year.

Sharing the News

We started spreading our news more publicly over the past couple of weeks.  I was reluctant to let our secret out for fear that once we did something would go wrong.  But it was getting harder to hide and actually now that the news is out I feel a sense of relief.  Honestly, if something does go wrong at this point, we will need all the love and support we can get.  And our announcements (we made them in stages) of this pregnancy have always included some kind of disclosure of our prior losses.

We started by telling our close relatives in person.  We visited Grandma WOW and gave her an enlarged version of one of our 12 week ultrasound pictures which my husband photoshopped to include a cartoon bubble with the baby introducing his/herself as her great-grandchild who she would get to meet in the spring.  Her reaction was priceless.  Before we told her the news, she was lamenting over how old she is.  She can't believe she is almost 86.  But a few minutes later when we told her that she was going to be a great-grandma, she laughed and said, "but I'm too young!"  Although her memory has been fading more rapidly, she seems to have remembered this news over the past couple weeks and I really hope that she will have the chance to meet her first great-grandchild.

A few days later we sent emails and text messages to some select people, close friends and extended family, who have known about the struggles we have endured.  The subject of the message was "We've Been Keeping a Secret" and the message included a photo of me wearing a tshirt we had made that says "Future Indians Fan" with an arrow pointing to my belly.  If I haven't mentioned it before, my husband and I enjoy going to baseball games and listening to them on the radio if we aren't at the game itself.  We wanted to make sure these people heard the news directly from us first before we shared the news with coworkers and others.

I shared the news at work last week.  I met with my supervisor first to let her know the news and that I planned to tell the office right after we met.  She's not that great at keeping secrets so I made sure to tell her just moments before my big reveal.  The night before, my husband and I went to a party supply store and bought this baby balloon which I brought and hung outside my office door:

I also brought in munch.kin donuts from Dunk.in Donuts and sent out an email (which also included the pic of me in the tshirt) which said:

There are Dun.kin Donut munchkins on the conference table for everyone to celebrate the announcement of the little “munchkin” Hubby and I are expecting on April 1, 2012 – just in time for the start of the next MLB season!!

A few days later, after much back and forth in my head about if and when to share the news on Face.book and how to share it without sounding like your average fertile, I decided on the following post which also include the photo of me in the tshirt (I have not posted any ultrasound photos):

Our journey to become parents has been anything but easy. We have spent years trying to start a family of our own and have endured multiple losses along the way. Now into the 14th week and out of the first trimester, we are hopeful that this pregnancy continues to progress beautifully and that we will experience the joy of meeting this little one some time early next spring!! :)

We have received lots of congrats and supportive comments since posting the announcement.  I have also heard from others who have had difficulty themselves.  Although I continue to wonder every day if everything is still going well with this little one, I'm glad we have shared the news and I am not stressed by trying to keep it a secret anymore.  Our next appointment isn't until a week from tomorrow and our anatomy scan is scheduled for the end of the month.  This is the longest I've gone without an appointment of some sort so I am a bit anxious about everything still being okay.  I'm still sleeping more than normal for me, but am not as tired as I was in the first trimester.  Other than some occasional twinges, abdominal aches and now this weekend some short, sharp pains in what feels like the cervical area (I haven't started to worry too much about these yet since I've read similar experiences from other bloggers), I'm feeling pretty good.  I will be so much more relieved and relaxed once I can feel this baby moving around.  Pregnancy is such a mystery as it is and, for someone who has experienced multiple losses, it seems harder to wrap your head around when you have no idea if what you are feeling, or not feeling, is normal.

On another note, my sister got engaged this week and I am so absolutely happy for her.  She and her fiance are a great couple.  No specific date set yet, but the wedding will probably be some time next summer.

The weather is beautiful here this weekend and I have tomorrow off so I am off to enjoy the sunshine while it lasts.  :)