Hecho en Mexico

Warning: some bodily funcions discussed below. OK, as you were.

Since Nate wrote about this on his site, I think I can write about it here as well. The biggest change around these here parts is that we will soon be adding a baby to the Stullover household. My due date is May 27, 2007.

This means that while we were on vacation, we did more than bring home a few souvenirs from Mexico. Based on my guess, I think we conceived in Zacatecas around Labor Day. Originally, our plan had been to try to get pregnant in December. In preparation, I'd stopped taking birth control and I was taking prenatal vitamins. Over the next couple of months, we wanted to paint a couple of rooms in the house, maybe pay off a credit card. And I had plans to run a half marathon on Dec. 10 in Dallas. Right before we left for our trip, I realized I was ovulating. Since were on vacation, we said, what the heck?

So I think we got pregnant on a Monday or Tuesday. On Wednesday we left Zacatecas for Guanajuato. We stayed at Pita's, and she is a truly wonderful host. Her house is 300 hundred years old and very quirky. On Thursday, Nate got really sick. It seemed like altitude sickness--nausea, dizziness, exhaustion--only we had left a higher elevation and gone to a lower one, so it was a little odd. Pita asked me if I thought I might be pregnant, because when her daughter was expecting, it was her son-in-law who had all the symptoms. I laughed it off at the time, but wondered if she might be right. The next day, we visited my old house mother, who also asked me about being pregnant. I told her I honestly didn't know and if I was, it was early. We spent most of the visit talking about children and babies and she gave me advice on breastfeeding.

Then we got back to Texas. For the next few mornings when I drank my morning coffee, I felt sick. My stomach felt like it was tied up in knots. I stopped drinking coffee and a day or so before my period, I took one of those early-pregnancy tests. Negative. Went out that night and ate sushi because an old friend was in town and damn I love me some raw fish (probably wouldn't have done that if I'd known). A few days later when there was still no sign of the crimson wave, Nate drove me to the pharmacy and I bought another test or two. Took that one. The line was so faint, neither one of us was sure if it was a positive or if it was an evaporation line. It was truly confusing. Waited a few more days and got a positive, which at that point I was suspecting. I am so rarely late. For me to have been more than a week late would have literally been the first time in my life I'd ever been that delayed.

Everything was confirmed by the doc a few weeks later. I heard the heartbeat at seven weeks and saw a very shrimp-like creature floating around. We went back today, and at 10 weeks, the jelly bean looks much more babyish. Heartbeat was good and the doctor commented on what a "wiggly worm" the baby was and the length was a little less than two inches.

Needless to say, this is why my training has slowed. I am still running but am doing 2-3 miles versus the 5-6 I was running before. No morning sickness at all, aside from not being able to drink coffee. I've always had food cravings and almost always indulged them, so at this point, there's really nothing different in my life except I've been so tiiiiiired. Taking a lot of naps. I'm also eating more dairy than I normally would. Only other difference is that these past few days I've felt sort of a firmness in my belly. I think it's pooching out a little more, but I doubt anyone else could tell unless they saw me nekkid. And I've never had a totally flat belly, so it's not like that's a big change for me either.

So that's the big news. Waiting on the latest Stullover and drinking milkshakes. It's been pretty fun so far.