It's a GIRL!!!

On Saturday Susan and I went to an Ultrasound place and got an additional look-see at what was going on inside. After some belly shaking, coughing, and restroom breaks, we finally woke up the baby and got her (it at the time) moving. After some great maneuvering by the technician, we saw it. Or actually we didn’t see it. Baby girl. Susan was crying immediately, I managed to keep it together until we made it to Babies “R” Us and I found a onesie that read “Daddy’s Girl.” We are having a little baby girl and couldn’t be happier.

Now that the question of “Boy or Girl?” has been answered, we are well aware of the question “Name?” that will be heading our way. We are still discussing several possibilities and we are going to get to know the baby for the entire 9 months of pregnancy before we officially decide. Therefore, we’ll know the name, when we finally get to meet our daughter face to face! For now, please feel free to call her Terrence Jr., Susan II, Potato, Seven, Soda, or Fetus. All are acceptable temporary labels.

Here are some great photos of the most recent ultra sound.

Can you tell she is sucking her thumb?

She has her mouth open, can you find it?

Yes she does look like the Brain from Pinky and The Brain.

Start Spreading the News

Finally we were getting close to the second trimester. It was time to share our fortune. As Susan’s birthday neared we started to devise a plan. First up were Susan’s parents and brother. We all got together for a simple birthday dinner for Susan. Nothing extravagant, just a nice meal at the Rand’s and a little dessert, but Susan and I cooked up a scheme. As per past experience, we know Ginny likes and appreciates the little things when decorating for special occasions. So, directly out of Ginny’s playbook Susan and I created name markers for each place setting and on the inside each dinner guests would have a “Susan Age Trivia” question. Susan and I played it off as if I made these randomly just for fun. Susan pretended she didn’t know anything about it. After dinner someone suggested we go though and read our trivia questions. The first surprise was how in depth and serious Ginny and Randy took the challenge. While Susan and I waited for the surprise final question to hurry up and get here, her parents debated, discussed, and researched the exact age when Susan got braces! Finally everyone had read their trivia question except for Susan. “Okay, last one. At what age did Susan get to say to her family: I’M PREGNANT!” After confirmation that this was “real” Ginny was ecstatic. Randy was looking down, focused and ready for another brain teasing trivia question. Once he heard the words he immediately looked up and you could already see the pride and happiness overwhelm him. We all hugged and hugged. It was a beautiful moment for all of us.

Two days later Susan had several friends over to celebrate her birthday. Before they headed off to get their pedicures Susan gave a toast thanking her friends for their love and friendship (she was starting to cry already) then following out with the big news. Cheers filled the dining room.

The next evening was on to my Mom’s house to tell my family. After an always enthusiastic “Happy Birthday to You” I made a toast to my beautiful wife. I make toasts all the time so this wasn’t out of the ordinary. I explained how happy I was to be married to Susan, how great she is, and how much I look forward to a future of many more birthdays. We clinked our glasses and then I shouted “Oh yeah, and Susan’s pregnant” as I pulled out a onesie that read “Baby Snodgrass.” I’ll never forget the cheers from my brother, the tears from my sister (they actually started during the regular toast), and the hugs from my mom. With a three year old Gracen, a one year old Sayler, one on the way, and more to come, we are going to have baby filled family get-togethers for many years to come.

The next week during the half time on Super Bowl Sunday I made another toast to all of my friends for recent accomplishments as well as one to Susan and I for making a baby. More cheers. Over the next couple of weeks we tried tell who we could face-to-face, call who we couldn’t see, and eventually post the news on facebook so even Zuckerberg and all his followers would be in on the secret.

If we haven’t told you yet, uh . . . . Hey, big news. Susan and I are having a baby

Hearing the Heartbeat

Another ultrasound. The baby is healthy, moving, growing, and beating. Everything seems perfect. We saw every angle of the baby from the back, front, and top of the head. We can’t believe how much the baby has changed. It looks like a baby. We can see facial features, torso, arms, and we even saw the legs kicking! Seeing the baby move was just incredible. This has added such a feeling of security. Our baby is doing great and as my mom said when I told her about all the moving “hyper already.” As the doctor was about to put the Doppler thingy-bob on Susan’s gu covered belly she explained “It might take me a second or two to find it” as the baby’s heartbeat filled the room the second the tool touched Susan's still flat belly. Click the orange "play" button below to hear our baby! Babyheartbeat2 22 by tasnodgrass

So this is our baby looking like an alien ready to attack. To help you see what you're seeing, let me explain. On the right you see the baby's face looking right at you. The bright round circle is the crown of the head and the line down the middle is the separation of the brain. To the left you can see the eyes looking at you, the facial features (chimpanzee-like) then the body. On both sides of the head you can see the baby's hands and arms up and ready to attack. Be cautious.

The Blob Grew

As Susan and I read our month by month pregnancy book, our week by week pregnancy book, and yes even our day by day pregnancy book, we watched illustrations of our blob develop. The favorite of this time was of course realizing that our baby looked like a manatee. To be honest, that is an insult to the manatee. At least manatees don’t have their intestines inside a big long tube and an external heart. They both have beautiful tails though. Day by day we would find out about the tail shrinking, arm buds popping out, and eyes forming on the side of the baby’s head. It was out little secret that something so incredible was happening inside Susan’s tummy.

Susan was finally starting to feel some of the pregnancy symptoms. Consistent nausea, occasional fatigue, and a few unexplainable tears were all direct correlations to what we had been reading about the pregnancy experience. I felt fine by the way.

We had our regularly schedule ultrasound. The blob is still blob like. But he or she is our blob, and we love our blob very much.

The black area is the uterus and the little peanut thing at the bottom of the black area is our baby.

Seeing the Heartbeat

Due to an odd pain that would eventually turn out to be nothing, we were asked to get a pretty early ultrasound. Usually parents have to wait for 8-10 weeks but we had our first at 5 weeks. While watching the screen’s mixture of black and grey wavy lines Susan and I saw a big black area and in the top right corner was a tiny blob and a small flicker. Susan and I were seeing our baby’s heartbeat for the first time. We fell in love with that little flickering blob, no bigger than a sunflower seed. I personally felt like a proud papa watching his son or daughter complete some magnificent task. It was beautiful.

Susan’s Pregnant!

On Friday, December 17^th, at about 7:15 am on a cool and cloudy morning, my hand reached out for the door knob to head out to meet a friend for an 8 mile run. Before I could grasp the door handle, Susan called my name from across the house standing in the bedroom doorway. She had slightly teary eyes and spoke with restrained excitement and worry “Can you look at something really quick?” I knew. I jolted passed her and into the bathroom. I found a recently peed on stick with a very very faint pink line. We are going to have a baby. We fell into each other’s arms and stayed intertwined for some time. We were pretty shocked. Before that moment Susan was positive that she wasn’t pregnant. She was just taking the test to confirm that she wasn’t.  Plus, it was a very early test, so we tried not to get too excited. The earlier you test the more likely the test will be incorrect. We took four more tests over the weekend and had a doctor test the next week. Susan still wasn’t 100% positive that this was really happening, but 6 (we did one more after the doctor) tests don’t lie.  Our lives would be forever changed.  We were on our way to parenthood!

You can see the dark line on the right, and if you look closely, there is a very faint pink line on the left. The pink line that changed our lives forever.