Here is the picture.

Sorry it is not very clear. It makes me want to go get one of those 3D sonograms but we are trying not to because I'm not sure how safe it is and we need to save money for the lawyer. But you never know.

19 weeks

We had our sono last night. Everything looked fine according to the tech. We are choosing not to determine sex of baby untill birth-it will be a wonderfull surprise. They esitimated our due date a bit earlier based on babys size. Before we would have considered this 19 weeks 1 day. Now considered 19 weeks 3 days. In the grand scheme of things this is not a big difference. It is soooo far away though! We have the sweetest little pic of babes profile. Unfortunetly don't know how to share it. No scanning capability. V may try taking a pic of the pic and posting-we will see how it works. We will have pics up of nursery soon. And belly pics. The belly is getting bigger but doesn't have the true baby bump look yet. This may be due to the fact that I have had the same pot belly my whole life and now it is disguising the baby belly.

falling in love

Gosh where should I start, when we went to C appointment three weeks ago the Doctor was asking all the normal questions and listened to the babies heartbeat. Then she said "maybe I should take a look and make sure there isn't two in there. I haven't had a set of twins for awhile and its about time for someone to have them." Then I said "I hope its not us." I started to panic just a little. She brought the ultrasound in and there it was the most beautiful baby (not babies thank goodness)I have ever seen. It looked like it was sucking on its thumb. We didn't get any pictures this time I think that is done around the 20th week. We are still holding strong about not finding out what the sex of the baby is. I don't care what we have but C's brother has the one year old boy and they just found out that the one on the way is going to be a boy also. He is due to be here in the middle of January. So it would be nice to have a girl so C's dad and grandparents will have a granddaughter. My brother has two kids one girl that is 17 and a boy that is 13 so my side has one of each already. We got C's grandparents moved. They now live about 1 1/2 miles from us. We have been busy helping them with the house and I am sooo happy they are here. C has not been feeling so good and I feel bad there isn't anything I can do to help her. I just hope it goes away soon for her. I miss my happy unsick lady. I love her so much and I cant thank her enough for giving me my own family.

Adoption update

We saw our 2nd parent adoption lawyer on Thursday evening. He is a very friendly and respectable person. I am glad he will be handling this for us. We will not attempt any of the adoption process until mid January. This is because a new judge will be in town and no one knows who they are and how sympathetic they will be to our cause. In 5 years the firm has handled 60-70 cases, all of which have been succesful. Not easy, but succesful.He is aware of another firm or two in our area who have handled a handful of cases. I definitley feel confident with this group. The same morning of the day we saw him he had a succesfull case with the women and their girls who referred us. We were initially troubled by the expense which in the grand scheme of things is not a lot. But our savings is fresh and this will deplete it, so we start over again, this time with a baby and no emergency funds. Good news is we can file for the federal adoption tax credit. We will get every penny back. You see, the tax credit is not meant for those who are adopting their spouses children. Our state does not recognize our Iowa marriage. So. Score for us!

This is week 13 day 3 and I have only thrown up once in 7 days. Nausea has been mild since Monday. And I made both of my strength and conditioning workouts this week. Could it be the renewed energy of the 2nd trimester has arrived? I am not convinced yet-as I sit at the computer and look out at this perfect Saturday morning I am not even close to feeling like a nice walk outside. But soon enough...Or perhaps I have just gotten used to the 1st trimester laziness. I have been weighing everyday and somehow 6 pounds crept up on my scale in a week. It happened to be the week I was feeling the worst and threw up the most. How does that happen? If I were to keep that kind of weight gain up throughout the rest of pregnancy I would gain over 150 pounds. I don't think that is realistic but still a very scary thought.

This Wednesday will be week 14 and also my next OB appointment. V gets to go this time and will hear the heartbeat. She was very disappointed that she didn't get to go and hear it last time. So happy she gets to go this time.

Second Parent Adoption

We got a hold of an attorney this weekend that does the second parent adoptions and I was shocked at how much it costs. It makes me sad to know all that money that could be going to something else like savings or a new roof is going to these people so that I have the same rights as a heterosexual married couple. They have to even come to our house and do a home check not only once but twice. What I don't understand is that C is having the baby and there is nothing that they can do about where the baby is going to live anyway. I guess that is why we ALL need to vote for same sex marriage. I was hoping to have two or three kids but if we have to pay 5,000every time I don't know if this would be possible. It would be hard to save for emergency funds, adoption funds, and just life with a family. We have a consultation with the attorney in a couple week I will keep you posted. I feel good about our attorney getting everything approved they do all of our county's same sex couple second parent adoptions. They did tell us though that there is going to be a new judge in 2010 and they are not sure who it is and if they will be friendly to this matter or not. I don't know what we will do if not. I guess we will find out.

-V-

As you read in the last blog C got to hear the heart beat today. I am very bummed I didnt get to go. I work in a dental office and I already had the day booked so I didnt take the time off. I already blocked out the time for the next visit so I can hear the heart beat too. C finally told her side of the family and they all took it well. Her Grandma and Grandpa live about 25 minutes away and they decided to move back to LS so they can be close to thier great grandbabies. So last weekend we looked at a few houses with them. They have it narrowed down to two places, I think they are going to put thier bid in on Thursday. They are so sweet I love them like my own. C's Dad was also excited he made her go right over to her other Grandma.

We also found a baby sitter just two blocks down from us. She is only going to take 3or 4 kids. She has been helping out with a neighbor watching kids and now she wants to start her own. She is 49 and her kids have graduated and she said she didnt want to look for a job in these crazy times and she enjoyed wathching kids now that hers are gone. I like that her kids are not young that way ours will get the same treatment, no favorites. We told her we were a same sex couple and she said she didnt care about that. So we are very happy. She said she walks by our house at seven everyday with her husband. So one day C and I pretended to be doing stuff in the yard right around seven so we could meet her. They seem to be very nice.

-V-

First prenatal

Today was my first prenatal appointment. Wednesday of this week we will be 10 weeks along. The best part about the appointment was hearing the heartbeat! It makes this pregnancy thing feel real. Other than feeling like complete crap I wouldn't know there was anything going on there. My doctor and her staff are super nice. I will see some of the other doctors for prenatals just incase my doctor isn't there for delivery I suppose. That would be a bummer, but in the grand scheme of things maybe not a big deal. Morning sickness has hit hard in the last three weeks. It is actually all day sickness. I seem to beable to control it as long as I have food every couple of hours but its not foolproof. No cravings yet, but I assume those will come along next trimester when the nausea goes away. I have been trying to keep up with exercise. I have done a strength and conditioning class 2 days a week for over a year now and it has gotten so tough! Prior to becoming pregnant I was running a couple of miles a day but not consistently-maybe a couple times a week at the most. I have ran 2 times since BFP. Maybe this is something else that will turn around in the 2nd trimester. I am not sure I care. I will just do the best I can and hopefully resume my prior level of fitness post pregnancy.

So overall everything is going smooth and as expected. Oh-we purchased baby bed and dresser. We will post pictures once everything is put together.