Five Weeks

My darling Violetta, I am in complete awe of the fact that today I am five weeks pregnant with you, and possibly Luigi or Lucia too. The past week went by in a little bit of a dream like haze. It all started last Sunday, Super Bowl Sunday. Your home team, the New England Patriots were playing much of your family's home team, the New York Giants. (Someday, maybe you will wonder why the New York Giants actually play in New Jersey!)

I was too impatient to know if you were with us to wait for my blood test the next day, so I took a test at home, which gave us some confusing results. Your dad and I were a sad that day, thinking this might not actually be the time you'd be joining us. But, we did manage to skype with your Uncle W (huge Giants fan) for a little pre-game rivalry.

We were stressed out to watch the game because it was a classic rematch of the Super Bowl from four years prior, when the Pats were headed for a perfect season, and the Giants ruined it. Your dad spent a lot of time in the other room not able to watch the game. And...unfortunately, history repeated itself. Our team lost. I vowed to return to my previous Sunday pass-time (pass on from your Great-Gram to you Granny to me) of watching figure skating.

The next morning, I awoke nervously, and decided to take two more tests at home. One of the was expired. I shouldn't have taken it. But...it was positive! The only problem was that I couldn't trust it. Always read the directions my little dear. Avoid the stress! The other test gave similar confusing results as the day before. I just didn't know what to think.

Your Dad and I drove to the hospital so I could have my blood drawn, and then he dropped me off at work where I waited for the phone call.

My phone rang much earlier than I expected. I was so nervous I couldn't answer, so I let it go to voice mail, and then ran out of the office to the stairwell we all use for private phone calls. I listened to the message. It was Nurse Susan. She said "Hi Jennifer, I am so happy to be calling you with good news to leave on your machine..." What? Seriously? For real? I immediately started shaking and crying and ran further down the stairs to find even more privacy so I could call your Dad. I tried to think of something cute and fun to say as the phone rang. When he answered, all I could manage to spit out was "241!" which was the level of pregnancy hormone in my blood. A nice high number! (Which could also hint that you just might have company in there. We'll see next week!)

Dad was with someone, so he sort of sputtered a few things in disbelief and said we should meet for lunch. So we did. We sort of stared at each other in disbelief, letting the news sink in.

Let's just say, the rest of the week, I was completely distracted at work. Instead of going back for repeat blood work two days later on Wednesday, I had to fly to Buffalo at 7 in the morning for the day for work. I arrived at the airport at 6 am to an extremely full security line. By 6:30, I was still waiting and had to beg the security officers to let me to the front of the line. What a panic! I didn't get to go through my usual pre-flight rituals of a stop in the restroom and a purchase of a bottle of water for the flight. I arrived at the gate just in time, needing to be, and feeling completely dehydrated. At least the nice flight attendant gave me a bottle of water!

Thursday morning, I went in for the second blood test to confirm that you were still growing away. The results came back very quickly with more good news! Oh Violetta, this is really happening! I still can hardly believe it! The nurse scheduled our first two ultrasounds, which will be at 6 weeks 2 days, and 8 weeks 1 day. I will be counting the minutes until I get to see you.

That night, we decide to tell your Granny (my mom) the good news. She has known how hard we've been trying to bring you into the world, and we wanted her to know she could stop worrying a bit now. We called her on Skype. It took us about 5 tries to actually get the video connection to work. It was very important to us because we wanted to see her face. She was so excited! She cried and waved her arms in front of her face.

Dad also told his mom (I don't know what you're going to call her yet) over the phone. I missed that one, so you'll have to ask him the details someday. But I do know that she cried as well. She has been busy lighting candles in hopes that you would decide it was time to show up, so she was trilled! We're not going to tell anyone else for a while yet though.

Yesterday, we went to one of my favorite places on earth, Ikea. We've been working on redoing our office. Hoping that we would soon need to turn our guest room into your room, the office needs to now serve as an office and a guest room. We painted the office last weekend, which was a great distraction while waiting to learn about you. And yesterday, we purchased the rest of the storage furniture we needed to make the whole thing come together. The sofa bed we're adding is still in Granny's basement. We'll bring it home later this spring when we go for a visit.

As for how I'm feeling, I'm definitely much more fatigued than usual. I come home most nights and take a nap on the couch while your awesome dad has been making dinner. And I have to pee all the time. I think I got up 2 or 3 times last night. I can definitely feel some cramps and stretching in my belly at times where I know you are settling in and making yourself comfortable. So far, I am not officially nauseous, but I have what I consider a nervous stomach all. the. time. So, I just keep eating a few crackers every few hours in case it is the beginning of anything more. Oh, and ginger altoids seem to help a lot too. And of course, I'm super distracted at work. It's hard to think of anything but you, how you are going to change our lives, when we will get to see you for the first time, do you have company in there? Yup, I'm not going to be very productive for awhile  I think!

Well, Violetta, that's about all I have to tell you about the first week we've known about you. I'm sure it won't take you long to learn that your mom is really good at long, drawn out, wandering stories!

Oh, one last thing, In addition to keeping track of how my belly changes with you in it (which I think I will start in a week or two), I thought it might be fun to track the progress of your room as we work on it. It will be a while before we know what the color scheme is, so it might not change a lot right away, but it's sort of amusing to see the disaster that it is right now since we had to empty contents of the office into it to finish that project. I can't wait to see how it evolves!