9 Weeks Ago

First off, thank you to everyone for the congratulatory notes. We’re so excited!

The past thirteen weeks have been interesting to say the least. Friday’s announcement is part of why it was so quiet on our blog this summer. I didn’t know what else to blog about, because the biggest news ever was at the forefront of my thoughts. Well, that and most of August was spent on the couch.

It took a while for the news to sink in for me. Even now, I can’t say that it seems 100% real, but with each growing inch of my waistline, it is getting more realistic. At first, I was kind of shocked that it happened that quickly. I know many couples who try for a long time before they get pregnant (or they have to seek fertility treatments). A little part of me always thought that I probably wouldn’t be able to have children, so combine that with the knowledge it takes months for many women to get pregnant, and you had one surprised Sarah nine weeks ago.

Since I am just now starting to add this topic into our blog repertoire, I would like to catch you up on everything I have been wanting to write about but haven’t. Some of it may be a little mundane, but there are parts that I want to be able to look back and read in the years to come.

Starting the prenatal care process…

In order to get my first appointment, I had to go to the on post lab and take their pregnancy test. Five hours later, the nurse called to confirm the news and schedule my first “appointment,” which she referred to as a briefing. Oh, Army, must you enter every facet of our lives?

The following week, we had our briefing, during which a nurse and nutritionist spoke to a room of five pregnant women about the prenatal care system available to us. Call me crazy, but I was less than pleased to be sharing this monumental news with four strange women and whomever they brought along to the briefing. I am of the opinion that this should be private news as long as John and I want it to be private, and 5 weeks into my pregnancy, I didn’t want anyone other than our doctor knowing our news!

I had no choice, though, and I got over it. At the end of the 3 hour long briefing (no, I’m not exaggerating), we got to schedule our first real appointment. Because the military stopped providing prenatal care in the on post facilities here two years ago, we were referred to one of three off post doctors. Yes, this means I go to a German doctor. The baby will be born in a German hospital. Yes, I’m perfectly happy with this; in fact, I am much happier with this than our child being born in a military hospital. And no, unfortunately, our child will not have dual citizenship. He or she will solely be a US citizen, and no matter what anyone says, this baby will be a Texan!