Nervous....Anxious.....Relieved beyond belief

In the days leading up to our first prenatal doctor's visit, I spent a lot of time online doing research and reading different pregnancy blogs and message boards. It seemed that a lot of people who were posting on the boards were going through early pregnancy complications and some had already had miscarriages and blighted ovums (ova?) - something I had never heard of before, but still sounds very scary.

Of course, I started to really freak out and get nervous about our own eight week ultrasound....even though we had seen the baby just a week and a half ago (see here). Sadly, I even took it out on Justin a few times getting easily upset with him and frustrated that he wasn't sharing my anxiety. To me, that made it seem like he didn't care if something was wrong...even though I know he was just trying to make me feel better.

Finally, the day of the appointment arrives. I was already bracing myself for the worst. I didn't allow myself to get too excited about it...in fact, quite the opposite. I was actually envisioning myself calling in sick to work the next day (which just happened to be the first day back at school) since I knew that I would be too sad to go to work if I got bad news.

Justin and I go in...and right away, the Amazing Doctor finds the baby and sees the flicker of the heartbeat. She said that everything looked perfect, and she said that because of this visit...our chances of miscarriage went from 30% to a mere 5%! She was very insistent that we could share the news with the world right away! I was so shocked and surprised because the thought of telling people never even crossed my mind...I had just assumed we would wait until the end of the first trimester to say anything (to anyone other than our parents and Amanda - see here and here).

Of course, Justin was all for telling the world. He had been dying to tell people from the beginning. [From Justin: I absolutely wanted to tell people, especially since Noreen had forbade me from saying anything while she had already let some people know! (See here)] I, of course, still wanted to wait a little longer....but after telling my mom the news and finding out that she and my father had both started telling people....why wait?

So, the next day (yep, the first day back at school), I made the announcement to my co-workers and Justin did the same. We're slowly starting to tell our close friends and family....and probably by the end of the week, the cat will most definitely be out of the bag. And I can finally make this blog public :-)

WHAT A RELIEF!!!

P.S. The Amazing Doctor gave us an estimated due date of March 16, 2011....but I'm sticking with the 17th. I'm all about a St. Patty's Day Baby Y!