It's A Boy!

Laying out these little clothes which we purchased on the way home from the ultra sound appointment made it a little more real for me. There will be a baby body in those clothes in 4 months.



I have been trying to hide my pregnancy a little bit in the last two blogs. I'm sure it has driven some people crazy that we haven't announced this yet (you know who you are), but A) it has hardly felt real, even still B) we have health reasons to be cautious C) we have enjoyed "incubating" this new bit of family life and keeping it for ourselves.



Todd and I have enjoyed being together here in our tiny apartment in Connecticut this summer. It has reduced our family life down to the bare essentials. We have some clothes, some dishes, a sewing machine (that needs using), a couple of friends, and ourselves. Oh, and a 17" TV. We share a car and all of our free time. There are no callings that distract us, and even Todd is done with work when he gets home, which is very fortunate this time of year.



We were lying in bed and talking the other night about how we wouldn't change the timing of this. Of course, we wish it had happened a little sooner, but we still wouldn't change it. I have had time to be with nieces and nephews as they have been little and have loved being the "available" aunt. I have loved my callings and my job. I have loved having ten years to be with Todd, to love Todd, to really get to know Todd, to become a team. Our relationship is so much stronger now than it was ten years ago when we began "trying" for a family.

There is a lot to be said for having children young, before you know too much about what you're getting into. Believe me; age and experience breeds fear. The older I've gotten the more apprehensive I've become about being a mother. I even reached a very comfortable level of accepting that we WOULDN'T have kids. That's a peaceful, quiet, enjoyable realization that not everyone can accept. But those of you who were fortunate enough to begin younger than 36 should also feel good that they had the energy and enthusiasm of youth! Good on you! Having your youngins young is the natural way to go!



So just to answer some commonly asked questions:

1) I feel great.

2) This was an in vitro (meaning "in glass"... yes a test tube, or rather a petri dish) I did have some of the same ovarian complications that I had last time, but that and the nausea passed by the 11 th or 12th week and I feel fantastic. In fact, only my growing stomach reminds me I am pregnant. I feel very "normal".

3) Yes, we have a name picked out. We've had 11.5 years of marriage to work out baby names. He will be Oliver Kent and you can call him Ollie or "OK Rhodes" until he asks you to stop. Oliver because it is classic and has a cute little kid nickname and I am a fan of Charles Dickens, AND if he is an only child he will be spending a lot of time with cousins and we thought it was an appropriate nod to the "Brady Bunch" that the only-child cousin would be "Cousin Oliver". That in itself is very Dickensonian. And Kent because that is both Todd's father's name and my father's middle name. It is a solid and masculine middle name and has the air of Superman about it. If you knew a kid named Oliver that you hated, or who was fat, or rude, or mean, or gay... we don't care.

4) Yes, you can babysit.

Even though I really thought this baby was going to be a girl, during the process of writing this I am getting more and more excited about having a boy. I mean, OF COURSE I am trilled to have a boy, but I was just really sure it was a girl and I am having to wrap my head around it a bit... buying some boy baby clothes has helped. But as a friend pointed out to me, "the world is in need of good men right now." And I cannot think of a better role model than Todd. This is the luckiest little boy in the world to have a dad who loves to camp and fish and skate board, and who will always have candy in his suit pocket when they go to the Priesthood Session of General Conference.

I feel really lucky. I am lucky to feel so good. I am lucky to be pregnant. I am lucky to have so much support for this little baby and so many people to love him. I am lucky that he is healthy. I am lucky to have a lot of favors to call in... just kidding, I won't be obnoxious. I will probably post more about this on the Baby Rhodesbud site, so check it out later. Meanwhile, I will continue to bask in my pregnancy "glow" (it's a tan).