A Big Little Announcement

How about a fun leap day announcement?

12 week glamour shot

I’m pregnant! Baby Sarah-and-Jose is due August 14 and we are super excited. To answer several frequently asked questions so far:

We found out December 1, and told our families when we saw them for the holidays. Yesterday marked 16 weeks. We’re going to find out the sex, but my doctor doesn’t do the anatomy scan until 21 weeks so we have to wait a whole 5 more weeks. Patience is a virtue, right? The heartbeat at my doctor’s appointment this morning was 147, so if you put stock in old wives tales, it’s a girl. But if you favor the Chinese gender chart, it’s a boy. As for me, I have no “feeling” one way or the other. Whatever it is, we’ll be happy.

The first trimester was mostly uneventful and I am extremely thankful for that. I had some days where I didn’t feel that great, including a particularly memorable hour-long layover in the Atlanta airport on our way to Charlotte for Christmas during which I struggled mightily to not throw up in the middle of the concourse. But I succeeded, and in fact, I never did throw up despite feeling nauseous pretty frequently. It was worst from about 6-9 weeks, and improved quickly after that. For a couple weeks in the 11-14 range I was exhausted pretty much all the time, but that’s improved in the past couple weeks. Sleep is actually my biggest complaint, since I haven’t been sleeping well since the beginning. But I know things could be worse so at the moment, I am feeling pretty darn good.

If you noticed a few weeks ago that I was talking about helping out another reduced gravity team of teachers, but that I never mentioned getting to fly myself, well, it’s because I didn’t get to fly this time. I wasn’t really upset, given the reason. Our child’s first time in zero g will have to wait.

I’m not running, for several reasons. I’ve been walking regularly, so I’m still getting some exercise, but it’s definitely not the same. I do miss running, and I know I’ll miss doing triathlons this year. But I’m hoping that I’ll feel energetic to volunteer at some of the local races — at least the ones that are early in the season before it gets hot!

And yes, the main thing I am NOT thrilled about is the fact that I am due in the middle of a Houston summer, which means I will be 7, 8, and 9 months pregnant when it is approximately 100 million degrees outside. But what can ya do, right? (On that note, does anyone want to build me an air-conditioned bubble?) Anyway, it is what it is and I’m sure I’ll be fine.

I wrote a couple offline blog posts that I’ll go back and add here, even though they’re not that exciting — just weekly update stuff, which I’ll continue to do in the future.

We’re having a baby! Whoa!