The week that was…

Sorry. I realize it’s been about three weeks since my last post. Let’s pick up where we left off…

After “Adventures in Cell Phone Buying”, Monday was a quiet (if dull) workday. It was the third week of my training class — which means that I was more or less sitting there watching my one remaining student do his job. (*Yawn*)

Tuesday… things got interesting again. As I’m getting ready to leave the house I get a call from work. Brenda — who was teaching the training class after mine — had a family emergency and couldn’t be in that day. So I was tapped to take over the class for the day.

Oy. One of the three students was just not getting it. She seemed to understand the concepts just fine, but when it came to transfer those concepts to practical application on the computer… it just wasn’t happening. We were about half-a-day behind schedule by mid-afternoon, and it was obvious that the other two students were getting a little frustrated with the third student’s lack of comprehension.

It was a tough to manage… we had management come in and observe, and they made the call that the third student was just not suited to the job, and she was cut loose.

As Tuesday wrapped, the plan for the class was still up in the air. I had just taught a class, and they wanted to offer it to the other trainers. Turns out none of them wanted it, so it came back around to me (again). Fine by me — it meant I didn’t have to sit around and die of boredom watching Rob (my previous student) do his job. Slight problem — I was on vacation the next week.

But that got sorted out in the end — one of the other trainers, given sufficient advance notice, didn’t mind taking over the class for the second week.

On to Wednesday… get up a little early, head into work for more training. Everything is going well (my toe by this point had more-or-less stopped hurting and the bruise had faded to just a slight blush of blueish red).

Then, at about 8:30 or so, Kara (one of the supervisors at work) comes in to tell me that Mary was on the phone with some news for me. A little concerned, I excused myself from the class and headed out to the central desk. I picked up the phone and said, “Hello?”

Her reply, “Josh, I’m pregnant.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather.

We’ve been trying to get pregnant now for a couple of months. Mary’s been taking a drug called Clomid to help us conceive. Because of the treatments, she’s been having regular blood work to see if the drug is working as it should (there’s no guarantee of conception, but it does force the ovulation cycle, which can be measured with lab tests). Before starting a new cycle of Clomid, a pregnancy test is done — if you’re pregnant, there’s no need to do another round of the drug after all (that, and Clomid can cause all sorts of complications to the pregnancy).

Mary had had a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday (the day before). The standard pregnancy test (pretty much like the one you get at the grocery store — urine based) done in the office had come back negative.

But the blood work, when it came back from the lab the next morning… was positive.

They caught the pregnancy amazingly early — so early that the standard test was negative. Now, it wasn’t 100% confirmed at that point — it was still early, and there was a chance (however slim) of a false positive. They wanted another round of blood work to see if things were progressing as they should.

Long story short, they were, and we were (suddenly) expecting a new addition to the family.

Looking back on it now, it shouldn’t have been too surprising. That weekend (the weekend that kicked off this whole saga), Mary had been sick to her stomach quite a bit — moreso than usual (she’s somewhat easily nauseated). Considering her pregnancy had just started… it was “morning sickness”.

Fast forward a couple of weeks. Regular lab work during this time indicates the pregnancy is progressing normally. Wednesday morning, we had the first ultrasound, our first “baby pictures”, and the first estimation of due date. First off, the pictures (thumbnailed here, click on them for a full-size version).

Ultrasound picture #1 Ultrasound picture #2
Ultrasound picture #3 Ultrasound picture #4

Given how small the “raisin” (as we’ve taken to calling him or her for now) is, I’ve added a bit of enhancement to help out. In the first picture (top right), there’s a mouse arrow inside that circle pointing to little Aiden or Titania (Aiden Malcom for a boy, Titania Lynn for a girl). In the second and third pictures (top left and bottom right) you might be able to see a couple of cross-hairs used by Dr. Hughes (the OB) to measure how large our “raisin with a heartbeat” is.

Dr. Hughes says we’re about six weeks along, and gave us a due date of April 16th — right around our anniversary (on the 14th), and in the same ballpark as my brother’s and sister’s birthdays (the 3rd and 10th of April respectively).

It’s very cool, and Mary has been after me to post about it. I have, so now she can go off and obsess about something else with regard to this whole thing.

(Just kidding honey. I know you’re going to read this, and I love you. It’s very cool, exciting, and scary all at the same time.)

That was the week that was. Whew. I’m beat.