A new life

28.182% baby :)
6 months, 2 weeks, 6 days remaining...
17,384,124 seconds and counting

And, believe me. Right now, Jen is counting the seconds.
Each new second is another battle won against the nausea.
Jen's describing it as feeling like you have a bad hangover, for five weeks.

I'm still blaming, Eve, but I'm sure that Jen's suffering is "building character."
She won't let me post the pictures I've been taking of her, but I promise, they'll make great photos to go along with the line, "Look what I went through for you!"
It may seem like I'm enjoying this a little too much, but I'm still pretty excited about the prospect of being a father. Jen got me the Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Wisdom of Dads book for Christmas!

The tough part this week for me (and Jen) has been that I'm in week 3 of getting to know what life as a Surface Warfare Operations Officer is like. After 3 years of 20-40 hour weeks, the past few weeks have snapped me back into the arduous sea duty life. We're in 3-section duty for the holiday stand down, and, since I didn't take leave, I'm at work 2 out of every 3 days, spending the night in between. The good news is that I'm coming online quickly with the breadth of my responsibility. The bad news is that no one's around to get Jen the Gatorade when she's so nauseous that she can't move. This won't last for much longer, but the underway time is rapidly approaching.

For now, I'm doing my best to force her to eat something, stay hydrated, and get up and around.

THE BABY REPORT (thank you wikipedia):
-The fetus reaches a length of 8 cm (3.2 inches).
-The head comprises nearly half of the fetus' size.
-The face is well formed
-The eyelids close and will not reopen until about the 28th week.
-Tooth buds, which will form the baby teeth, appear.
-The limbs are long and thin.
-The fetus can make a fist with its fingers.
-Genitals appear well differentiated.
-Red blood cells are produced in the liver.

And now the Cowboy Lament...
my baby has a face, it is sad :(
my baby has a big head, just like most of my team.
my baby's eyes are closed, just like the Cowboys' Offense.
They won't open till well after the playoffs.
my baby's limbs are long, thin, and easy to knock balls out of
my baby has a fist and is shaking it in anger

Thank God for other sports, like hockey...
oh wait...nevermind.

My baby's blood is rising!!!

We wish you all a continued Mele Kalikimaka and hope you enjoy the New Year's Fireworks!

The Story So Far

(from Noble's point of view)

About Nov 5th, 2008...

We missed our window this month. It's tough to try to make babies when you have to go out to sea during prime ovulation time, especially after you've been trying for a while. Silly Noble, had to go watch some ballistic missile defense, super cool missile shot. Had to get underway on the HOPPER for a week so he can get to know the DDG layout...

Oh well. There's always next month.

Jen mentions something about "...if I'm pregnant, I don't want to..."

That's not really possible.

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About Nov 8th, 2008...

It's about time to get serious about family planning again. Noble's getting ready to report to the ship and we have timing issues to consider. If we don't get pregnant soon, we may need to stop trying for a few months like we did last time. Yeah, that's no fun!

As most imprtant conversations with us go, it starts at the wrong time when one of us (i.e. Noble) thinks of the topic, and goes something like this...

Noble: "So, speaking of babies, we should talk about maybe holding off for a few months after next month"

Jen: (in the kind of soft sad tone that lets you know that it was the wrong change of topic) "I really don't want to talk about that right now..."

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Nov 12th, 2008

Noble's notorious for letting his cell phone get to the minimal charge before recharging it. He insists that it polongs the battery life, even though the battery maker will tell you that there is not a hysteresis problem with the new batteries... So today, his phone charge dies.

He has some important work to due in the Naval Surface Group, Middle Pacific, Operations Office writing instructions, trying to decipher what the future of the Navy will be, you know, matters of Naval significance. So he doesn't realize what his wife is doing. He doesn't realize that she's off with our friend Tamar about their normal errand running and island exploring. He doesn't realize that Jen has decided to buy a pregnancy test...

He certainly doesn't get the email and phone call requesting that he call her as soon as he gets the message.

Only after he gets home in the afternoon, apologizing for being a little late and not having the availability to call, and after he kisses his wife, does she show him the reality of the picture below...

Yep. That's two lines folks, and the conspicuous absence of the word "not" on the top line should explain the rest.

:)

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Nov 17th, 2008

Ok. I know that some of you will be disappointed that it took me so long do develop this, but I did come around...

I'll admit, it's a little crude yet, but I'm working on it. (let's face it, it's not in MATLAB!)

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Nov 21, 2008

The first hardest thing about being pregnant, for the guy anyway, is figuring out when to tell people that you're pregnant. We're not the kind of people to keep anything really important to just ourselves, mostly because we believe that it's important to have other people share in or help you deal with the major issues in your life.

Last time (the first time), we found out that we were pregnant at 5 weeks. Told everybody at 6 weeks as a father's day surprise, and had a miscarriage at 6.5 weeks. That was tough... We got through it as we realized that, first, we hadn't really settled into the concept that we were pregnant yet - no ultrasounds, no little heart beat, etc. - and second, that we now knew that we could get pregnant: all the pipes worked, etc.

This time, we've decided to wait a little longer. 10 weeks puts us right at Christmas. That seems like a good time :)

So now, when your good friend Mel shows up to spend 9 days with you in Hawaii, and your wife has been friends with her for 10 years, what do you say? How do you explain the discomfort, the nausea, the sleepiness, and the rest? How do you explain that tonight's not the best night to go out and that you'd rather stay home?

sigh... what other peril's await for the coolest thing ever to happen???

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Nov 25, 2008

We had to tell Mel. I mean, what a bummer to come to Hawaii, and your friend is moping around, feeling like crap, not excited to do anything. So we told her yesterday.

I like telling people! It's exciting! My baby is being assembled in the launcher! (yes, I actually said that today)

It's surprising to me how bad jen feels. It seems like she has a constant malaise with a little bit of nausea. What a bummer. :( We bought those little peanut butter cracker sandwiches and the club cracker cheese sandwiches so that she could have a simple go to snack by the bed to stave off the ickiness. I've realized how important it is to continue all the more to tell Jen how much I love her and express that I want to be around her. Because of how gross she feels, it's easy to forget and start to feel like she doesn't want me around, but I know that's not true. Were I to just leave her alone, we would both start to feel worse, and we can't have that...

The baby's heart starts pumping this week! This is awesome.

Please start praying that I'll be able to see the birth.

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25 Nov, 2008

Thank you to wikipedia and to Scott M. Gilbert for this image of the prototypical 6 week fetus.

My mom saw the movie Alien while she was pregnant with me. I can't help but think about that as I look at this picture. It looks almost exactly like the viscious little creature as it pops out of the guy's chest. Yeah, best not to let Jen dwell on this one now.

After we looked through the "What To Expect When You're Expecting" we feel more comfortable with all of her symptoms. With the exception of the vomiting, she seems to be the poster child for what to expect when you're expecting!!

Liver, lungs, arms, legs, heartbeat, mouth, ear pits, gallbladder, spleen, and pancreas all begin this week! Please pray for a robust liver, strong arms and legs, a loving and compassionate heartbeat, a small mouth to ingest less food than its parents, tonally skilled ears, and organs that function better than any other of their type.

16.03% baby....

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12 Dec, 2008

Well, we made it. Our first underway separation after pregnancy.

Imagine, if you will, that you come back to your stateroom after a 15 hour day only to read about how your wife was escorted to the hospital... That's about as far as I got before I stopped breathing and started to flip out...

Thank God for Tamar and the email. Jen's fine. The nausea and indigestion are really getting to her. It's less of morning sickness and more of all-day sickness. Thank God for Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup.

I missed blogging about our first medical appointment! We went to the Naval Clinic (Makalapa) at Pearl Harbor where we met with an OB nurse. All of the OB doctor types are up at Tripler Army Medical Center, up on the hill. This first appointment was meant to check all the fluids, make sure we had pre-natal vitamins, to introduce us to all of the pre-natal care that is available, and then to select a medical care provider for the birthing process.

The way they do things here is to assign you to one of several teams of healthcare providers that consists of midwives, nurse-practicioners, and doctors. The team works together to maintain oversight on all of the team's patients, but you choose your particular provider based on your desire for type of birth. Midwives offer homeopathic birthing techniques. Nurse-practicioners can provide some medication like epidurals if you want it, but they cannot perform surgeries (i.e. C-section). Doctors almost entirely rely on epidurals.

Jen would like to go for natural birth, but she's not opposed to medication, so we picked a nurse practicioner. Our first appointment is Jan 5th. We'll get to have an ultrasound and get those super awesome first pics of the baby and you get to find out the gender. We've decided to find out instead of waiting for the surprise. I would say that it will be our "first ultrasound" but when Jen went to the hospital this week, they did one to make sure that the baby wasn't ectopic or anything...

(here's where I get REALLY jealous)

She got to see the heart beating!

How is it possible to be excited and frustrated and happy and jealous all at the same time? God knows. Maybe He's teaching me...

For the record... 21.76% baby. 18,927,817 seconds remaining (give or take a couple hundred thousand)