Little Boyd is Here!!

 Brian, Wally and I welcomed out new addition, Autumn Alyssa Boyd, on October 12, 2010, at 4:56pm -- just in time for happy hour, right? She weighed 7 pounds 10 ounces and was 20 3/4 inches long. Her name was one we had both liked from the beginning, but we didn't make the commitment until about an hour after her birth. I was still in a bit of a fog from 22 hours of labor and some drugs that were starting to wear off. So, in other words, I was in a very agreeable state when someone asked Brian if we had a name yet. He looked at me and asked, "Autumn?", to which I happily replied, "Sure!"

The actual labor and delivery experience was a lot less miserable and gruesome than either of us imagined. I chose to be induced due to my own impulsivity and impatience. In similar fashion to agreeing to her name, I happily replied "Sure!" when my doctor offered to get this baby out whenever we wanted (after 39 weeks).  We went in at 7pm on the 11th, got started on some drugs, watched some football, waited for magic toi happen, watched a movie or two, tried to sleep, waited some more...and then it was morning. Things were progressing somewhat, and continued to throughout the day. Around noon my prince charming entered the room, in the form of a handsome young African American man wielding an epidural kit. He changed my life in the span of 30 minutes, and I made sure to let him know. To be fair, however, Brian was quite a lifesaver as well -- he just didn't have the power of anesthesia on his side.

When it (finally) came time to push the little bugger out, I was feeling really good. Brian and I had some fun conversations with the nurse and my doctor, and at some point another doctor barged in to commentate on the "race" that I was in with his patient next door. I didn't realize this, but apparently this was a pretty intense race that had been taking place since 8am. I won, she didn't stand a chance.

Uncle Dave brought cigars!

Autumn's pre-bath portrait

Within about 45 minutes, Autumn had made her entrance. To our surprise she had a full head of hair! It was love at first sight, despite her being pretty gross and slimy until getting her bath. What an amazing moment to finally meet the little person I'd been sharing my body with for the past nine months. I'm pretty sure she was worth it :)

It's a....GIRL!!.....??

At my 16-week appointment the doctor asked if we wanted to check out the baby and see if we could tell what the sex was. Of course we didn't turn him down.

Doctor (locating the baby with the ultrasound thing): "So do you guys have any feelings or ideas of what you think it is?"

Us: "Umm, not totally. Boy, maybe?"

Doc: "Ok guys, well see that white line right there between the legs? That's what the girl parts look like at this point. I'm pretty sure you're having a girl!"

Us, not seeing a white line, or even legs for that matter: "No way, wow!"

Doc: "Oh wait, hold on, that's actually a foot. Sorry guys.....but just a sec....nope, I'm pretty sure it's really a girl. I'd say 75% sure."

So there you have it. We're going with "girl" for now, or the assumption that our little peanut is about 75% girl. We're really excited! Our good friends Holly and Rob, who are about 3-4 weeks ahead of us in this journey, are also having a girl, so at least she'll have one friend!

Still a (big) girl!

Well it's been almost a month now, but we had our 21 week ultrasound in early June. This was the "big" ultrasound where the doctor makes sure everything looks good by taking measurements and looking at the heart, kidneys, brain, etc. Apparently this is also the ultrasound where the doctor tells you your baby is a big fatty and that if she continues growing at this rate she'll probably be at least eight or nine pounds on her birthday. I think she was in the 89th percentile, thank you very much. I'm still not sure where this baby beast is hiding though, as I've yet to have a single stranger notice that I'm pregnant and can still wear most of my prepregnancy shirts. Not gonna complain about that. In all seriousness though, it was really cool to see our little girl looking more baby than alien. She kicked the whole time and put on quite a show. I started feeling her move pretty consistently at around 16 weeks, and Brian could feel her just a couple weeks later. Instead of spending our summer evenings outside on a patio or rooftop bar, these days we amuse ourselves by poking my stomach and seeing if we can get the little bugger to kick us. Woohoo!

In other news, we just got back from a great trip to California -- 2 weeks for me, 10 days for Brian. The main purpose of the trip was for my good friend Erika's wedding (she swims like a dolphin, but she's not). This was something we (or at least I) had been waiting patiently to occur for over ten years now. The highly anticipated day turned out to be perfect. Perfectly cool for Fresno, beautiful bride and amazing details, so fun! I also really enjoyed the photobooth, and can only dream of the incredible time I may have had with that if I wasn't fully sober. The rest of the trip we split our time between Santa Cruz and Shaver Lake. Highlights included kayaking with my dad in the harbor alongside a few schools of dolphins, Little Girl's first baby shower hosted by my mom's "girlfriends", hours upon hours of shopping the fabric stores of Santa Cruz for the perfect baby bedding material -- only to settle on the very first color scheme I had in mind (more on that), and an unforgettable temper tantrum by Uncle El after his supposed "best ribs ever" were ruined by a trip to the lake.

 Dolphins in Santa Cruz Harbor

Google really does know everything

So before we get too far in front of those first few moments that Brian and I realized we were about to become parents, let's go back to that fateful Saturday in late January. That morning I woke up and asked Brian,

"don't you think it should be that time of month by now?"

Now, I fully realize that most guys would respond with something like,

"how the hell am I supposed to know that, don't you?"

But things clearly work a little differently in the Boyd household. Instead, Brian's response was,

"No, I'm pretty sure it should be in a couple of days...or maybe right around now. Probably not though."

This whole conversation proved to be quite pointless, however, since twenty minutes later I left for the grocery store to buy stuff for breakfast, also fully intending to purchase a pregnancy test no matter what Brian's period calculator had said. Then, although I fully intended to wait a few days before taking it, that whole inability-to-wait for things (see previous entry) took over, and within five minutes of returning home I was peeing on the stick. The little hourglass started blinking on the fancy digital screen, and before even I could start feeling antsy about waiting for the results, up popped a big fat,

"+ YES"

Somehow I missed the plus sign, and thought for a quick second, "Yes, what? Yes, you can keep your plans for drinking mimosas on the patio all day, and when you go to Park City next weekend you can play drinking games at the Raper's just like you always do?"

Then, more reasonably, I realized, "yes, there is a reason you had a hunch about this. After all, there are some things you do know better about yourself than Brian does."

So I hurried into the living room for a quick game of show and tell, since the "show" part didn't register with Brian one bit by itself. After telling him that a) he was holding in his hand a stick that was recently drenched in my urine, and b) that I'm pregnant, he immediately surprised me with the most supportive and loving response one could ask for from their husband...

B: "So what do you think the chances are that you got a false positive?"

E: "Really? Um, I don't have much experience with these, but I'm pretty sure the chances are pretty low."

B: "Ok, well you should pee on that second one just to make sure."

At this point I left Brian in the living room and occupied myself by drinking multiple glasses of water and cleaning the kitchen. I'd never hoped my bladder would fill up so quickly. About five minutes into this, Brian calls me back into the living room.

B: "Hey, so did you happen to put any lotions or perfumes on your vagina this morning?"

E: "Really?"

B: "Yeah, because if you did, that's probably why you got the positive. You know, the chemicals from the lotion or perfume or whatever can throw it off. I Googled it."

Yep folks, one of the very first things Brian did when I shared this exciting and slightly scary news was Google, "chances of false positive pregnancy test".

For the record, I don't have any idea why Brian thought the solution was as simple as vagina lotion. I'm not into that.

Surprise of a lifetime

Most people, whether they know it or not, take a pretty firm stance on surprises. Think about it -- you most likely either love 'em or hate 'em. But I'm sure there are at least a handful of people out there who, like me, stand somewhere in the middle. When I turned sixteen, I came home from dinner with my family, to find twenty of my friends hiding in my house, just waiting to scare the shit out of me. They turned the lights on and started yelling things at me and laughing, and I think there were birthday decorations all over the place. They did succeed in scaring me for a moment, but I quickly realized that this was going to be a really cool birthday.
On the other hand, if you've known me more than a minute or two, you've probably noticed that I have the patience (and often attention span) of a flea. Anticipation is one of the worst forms of torture I can imagine. Living with me during Christmas time is, in Brian's terms, like "spending Christmas with a five-year-old". If he happens to make the mistake of telling me when he has bought or ordered my gift, he's in for a good four to six doses of, "can you pleeeease just give me a hint?", or "I probably should open that now, so that if it doesn't fit you have time to take it back" every day. Those kind of surprises kill me, seriously.
So anyway, Brian and I recently received the "surprise party you're not expecting" type of surprise. We have a new addition to our family on the way! While I have to admit that this surprise also succeeded at scaring the crap out of us for a minute (okay, or maybe a whole day or two), it's now safe to say that we're both really excited to join in on this party full-force. And the more we think about it, the more we both realize that if this was something we had been anticipating, I truly might have lost my mind.
At this moment I am eleven weeks along, due October 13, 2010. So if all goes well we will have a little pumpkin to add to our family by Halloween. I can't wait to dress it up like a jellyfish.