November 2010 Archives

So the news came down the wire that Emily (Amanda's sister) is going to have a little girl. That will mean two out of three so far for grand kids on the Widmer side! Amanda and I find out January 6th what we are having. Honestly we really don't care (Insert sappy over used line about the baby being healthy and whole) but I do find myself wondering if there will be three girls or one little boy who ends up getting pink hand-me-downs?

In other news I am in Fresno for two weeks to see my mom and little brother and enjoy some Thanksgiving dinner at Marie Calendars. I also did seven improv workshops in five days. That was a bit exhausting to say the least. This week has been a little more relaxed. I still have work and of course just before a holiday and on a three day work week everyone wants projects that were on the back burners now. YESH!

Tuesday I head back to Chicago, We will be doing Christmas home this year and visiting Amanda's parents the week before since Amanda has to work. I'm excited for 2011, with the exception of everyone telling me about baby barf, baby poo and baby piss. I get it folks. Babies are gross and do gross smelly things. I'm sure I will be miserable. I will post pictures if you like of how miserable I really am. But I can't let that get in the way of how excited I am to be a father.

Other than that have a great T-Day people!
-Alan

First a update: We heard the baby's heartbeat (which sounds like sqwoosh, sqwoosh, sqwoosh! sound and WAY more exciting than I expected.) We are going into week 13 and Amanda is feeling better and starting to get the munchies.

OK, names!

Amanda had wanted to have twins (so she could get it all over with at once) but after figuring out what names we both like I'm kind of glad we didn't! It would have been a lot harder. I do like that Amanda is with me on the idea of our kids having unique names. Nothing quite like "Moon Unit" or "Apollo Starbuck Hawkins" but something more that Bill, Joe or Frank. We did have a few moments of disagreement but over all we are happy with our choices. I've never been the biggest fan of my name. One I am a Jr. and that is a ROYAL pain in my butt. (Plus it once let my father steal my identity when I was 12 years old wrecking my credit for YEARS!) so I think these names are great! Hopefully our kid thinks so too.

Ready?

subject to change upon seeing the child or we find out there was a serial killer named one of these.)

 

Finneas Parker Hawkins - Boy

Amalie Joy Hawkins - Girl

 

Names that did not make the cut -

girl:    
Lucy Skye
Madeline Grace
Phoebe Rayne
Abigale Bess

 

boy:
Elliot James
Micah Walter
Parker Lee
Shay Parker   

(You can tell we had a think for the name Parker) Jan 6th we find out if we need blue sheets or pink.

Amanda and I decided we should start the "thinking about, maybe someday bringing a small human into the world." Amanda told me that it may take a few years since she had been on birth control for so long. Our idea was that she would go off of "The BC" and we would go into the mode of "Not trying but not, not trying" If it happened sooner than later then great but if it took longer than a year we might have to start looking for some help.


Swing the calendar around three times to one night where I come home from my bass guitar practice and I find her standing in the hallway. "I think I am going to use one of these pregnancy test." Oh! "OK" So she goes through the process of peeing on a stick and I ask how long does it take to get a result? "Two and a half minutes... Oh crap!" Yep, took thirty seconds to get a positive! "OK, not to worry. I will get a new one tomorrow night and we will double check" the next night she tries two at the same time. And again, 30 seconds is all it takes.

We spend the whole night not sleeping but trying to sleep. Occasionally we say things like -

"I guess we need to buy a second car."
"We can turn the office into the nursery"
"Remember when we thought it would take a year?"

Two weeks is a LONG time!

Well, as our excitement was just starting Amanda was also feeling some strong cramping. We had not even known for two days before we needed to run to the Emergency Room at Northwestern. Amanda's OBGYN had told us to contact them if she felt any strong cramps and of course she did on a Sunday. But they got us right in and after a few exams, some blood work and a ultra sound everything looked good. Monday we went to our real OBGYN and got a real Ultra Sound. They could see the sack and the yolk but no "stem" which for the men out there is code for "BABY". This was the first time I heard the term "Empty Sack" pregnancy. This means that Amanda's body was doing everything as if it was making a baby just without the baby. They told us to hold tight since we were not totally sure of Amanda's cycle and to come back in two weeks.

Well, that put the breaks on any planning or talking to anyone. Meanwhile poor Amanda is going through all the fun of being preggers but none of the assurance that everything was fine. We stopped talking about names and only lightly talked about having a baby in fear that we would jinx ourselves.

Tick, tock... Tick, tock...

Finally! The Friday comes for another Ultrasound. The lady comes in and goes to work in a "I do this ALL damn day" kind of attitude. "OK! There is the fetus, and here is the heart beat... Do you want a print out of the scan?" DUH! No lady, I want to wait until it can wave at me and toss up a ROCK HAND. Can I have the scan please???

And as soon as it was printed out we were done! Two weeks of stress wiped away in minutes. We were back on track.