Wait, What?

It was a very exciting weekend! The first and most important news is that Andrew Anthony III was born on July 17 sometime around 10:00 am. He was 9 lbs 3 oz and 21 inches long. It turns out that he was three weeks premature. Poor baby got stuffed into an incubator with an IV drip because he couldn't regulate his blood sugar or body temperature. He is still in the NICU doing better, but fighting off a case of jaundice. Shantel is struggling with high blood pressure and has swollen feet and ankles from going up every three hours to check on and feed baby. What a crazy life! We are praying that the Reiber's are able to bring little Andrew home safely in the next few days. Check out his first mug shot!




In the meantime we have been anxiously waiting to tell our extended families about our good news. Last weekend was the perfect time to tell the whole gang. I printed out some pictures of our house and the picture of Griffin in his "Big Brother" shirt. I put them in a photo album with Griff at the end. We brought the album to Uncle Leo's 50th birthday party first. I had Grandma Sally, Aunt Paula, Nicole, and Kellie surrounding the photo album and when the picture of Griffin finally came up they stopped and said "Are you getting another puppy?" Then they thought maybe the tee shirt related to Griff being a big brother to baby Andrew. Finally Kellie figured out that I was pregnant and everyone started screaming. As the guests strolled in we had fun showing the picture and watching the reactions.

Given the picture confused more people than it did provide clarity on the issue of my pregnancy, we decided to announce the news in a different way at Grandma T's 80th birthday party. After dinner we approached Grandma with a birthday gift. Kendra and Casey rounded as many people up as they could. When she opened the gift she found an "ABC" picture frame and read aloud to the group the words "New Baby T Coming Soon..." She was a little confused at first because Casey is having a baby this November (although the baby will be a McIvor), but when everyone began screaming, her jaw dropped. She turned to us with eyes as wide as saucers and filled with tears. She gave Paul a big hug and gave me the first real hug she has probably ever given me!





Overall, it was one of the better weekends we have had all summer. We are so excited to be able to share our big news with everyone. Now everyone can stop hounding us about when we are going to have a baby!!

Rat-A-Tat-Tat

On Friday, July 10 Paul took the day off of work to accompany me to our first doctor appointment. The appointment lasted a healthy two hours. We spoke with Nurse Kathy for the first hour. She took my weight - 134 lbs (yikes... okay, maybe I wasn't in peak condition prior to getting pregnant) and height then she took us in a room to explain the paperwork, available testing, the importance of breastfeeding, proper nutrition, recommended reading, etc. to prepare us for Baby Tithof's arrival. We liked her very much!

One thing we are still considering is if we would like to have the quad test. It is a harmless prenatal screen for neural tube defects and down syndrome. The test can give both false positive and false negative results. Some people choose to have further invasive testing when they receive positive test results. We think the only benefit to the test would be the ability to prepare for a baby with either of these birth defects.

We have two possible due dates. Based on a typical 28 day cycle the due date is February 3 and based on MY typical 40 day cycle the due date is February 16. Dr. Avery chose to go with February 3 until our ultrasound at 20 weeks, which puts me at 10 weeks. After much poking and prodding, Dr. Avery decided that since I was thin and since my uterus was tilted forward that she might be able to pick up the baby's heartbeat with the Doppler. It took only one second and we were able to hear the sweet sound of our baby's heart beating at a rapid 172! It was so exciting. I didn't think I would cry, but there I was a total wreck with tears flowing down my cheeks. Paul was beaming when I looked over at him and he said he was tearing up a bit himself. It was by far the sweetest sound we have ever heard!

Dr. Avery said we could feel free to tell people our good news. We plan to tell our extended family this weekend. We are planning to tell the Reiber's at Uncle Leo's 50th birthday party and at Grandma Millie's surpise 80th birthday party. It should be a fun weekend!

Try, Try, Try, Try, Try Again

Once we settled into our new house, bought some furniture, and did some decorating, we found ourselves happy and content. So what did we decide to do? Try to have a baby, of course. We had talked about it for a while and decided to start trying in January or February 2009. I just didn't want to be 9 months pregnant for Kelly's wedding and have my water break on her Manolos or something terrible of that nature. We thought it would be pretty easy getting pregnant and all. Turns out that it actually took quite a bit of work. I found myself cursing Aunt Flow as each month passed. Before long, I found myself crying for an entire day about not being pregnant. I can remember when getting pregnant was the absolute worst possible life scenario!

It was a Sunday night - June 7th to be exact - Paul fell asleep in two seconds as per usual and I spent the next three hours tossing and turning wondering if could possibly be pregnant. I was supposed to start the next day. I fell asleep only after turning to the Lord for some comfort in my third hour of stress. I woke up at 4:30 when Paul was leaving for work and ran to the bathroom to take the test. There they were in an instant - two pink lines! I'M PREGNANT! I was so excited I could hardly contain myself. I didn't know what to do. I went back to bed and then spent the entire day in some sort of haze. I had to think of a great way to tell Paul, but I hadn't the slightest of an idea. My coffeeless body wandered around Target in a cloud of confusion for nearly two hours before leaving empty handed. Finally, about an hour before Paul got home for work I had the idea to puff paint a doggie tee shirt for Griffin that said "Big Brother." I sent Griff out in the shirt when Paul got home from work and it took a good thirty seconds for him to figure out what was going on. When he finally did, he didn't believe me! We hugged and kissed and Paul even teared up a little. It was such an exciting day.



We decided to tell our neighbors the next day since they were sure to keep a good secret. They were so excited for us and we spent the entire night chatting about pregnancy and babies. We decided to tell our parents next. I told my mom and dad by showing them the picture of Griff in his tee shirt. We tried to tell Paul's parents that same weekend, but The Moore's showed up a half hour late in true Moore fashion and by that time the whole family was there. We ended up telling them on Father's Day and they couldn't have been happier. We spread the secret to Drew and Shantel the following weekend, Sara & Matt, Kelly & Matt, and Julie. Paul told everyone he worked with the next day. He was so excited he couldn't help it :o)

We feel so blessed to be given the opportunity to be parents. It seemed like it took forever for us to get pregnant, but like my good friend said, maybe God was trying to teach us patience. I ended up praying every single night that we would have a baby if it was God's will. Before long, I found myself praying for every pregnant woman I came across and for every woman struggling with infertility. I learned of the pain and emotional struggle that goes along with the inability to get pregnant. The thought of people in the world having abortions brought a new definition to the words disgusting, selfish, and murder. I feel such love for this baby growing inside of me and I pray each night that all babies are given the best opportunity to live and breathe. Who wouldn't want that chance? God is good!

Where to Begin?

I have wanted to start a blog since Paul and I got married in October 2007. I wanted to document our lives together and record all of the ups and downs that seem to be monumental at the time before quickly fading away to a distant memory. It has been over a year and a half and I am just now getting around to jotting down some thoughts. I'd like to give a brief synopsis of our life together before I begin telling the story that got me off the couch and into this computer chair to start with.

After our wedding in our hometown and our honeymoon in Tennessee, we moved Paul's worthy assets into our two bedroom duplex in East Grand Rapids. Despite being small and not having a dishwasher, air conditioning, or gutters, and despite the view of the weird neighbors with ten couches in the backyard and Christmas lights on 24/7, we really liked our place. It had cherry bookshelves and cherry ceilings. It was perfect for us while we searched for our first home and we had a lot of good times in the year that we lived there (like playing Olympics on our balance balls and nearly breaking our necks trying to stand on them).


The duplex is also where we raised our pup Griffin. I broke down and agreed to getting a puppy after months of Paul's pleas. He got laid off and I decided he would be a good stay at home daddy. I wanted a little girl pup named Lola and Paul wanted a boy. He talked me into going to see some brand new chocolate lab pups one winter night in January. He forgot to mention that there was one 13 month old male pup left from the last litter until we were pulling in the driveway. Sure enough, staring straight at us with cute little puppy dog eyes and a wagging tail, was Griffin. It only took two hours of convincing, but we finally walked out into the biggest freak snowstorm of 2008 with a little chocolate lab puppy. Paul never lets Griffin forget that "mommy didn't even want you" when he cuddles up to me. Now, I truly believe that animals can open up a part of your soul that you might go your whole life without knowing exists.

We started taking Griff for walks in the summer to look for our new home. I always hated this one block of Gladstone Ave just down the road from our duplex. It was really cluttered and had 10,000 little kids running across the street every day. Little did I know that we would find our dream starter house on that crumby old street! When we walked through our current house we were in love! We made an offer and a counter offer and then one month later we were moving in. We snuck in the house before we closed on our first anniversary to have a bottle of wine we bought on our honeymoon. We drank it in the kitchen and I'm pretty sure the neighbors thought we were crazy.

We had our first Halloween in the house - I was the neighborhood cat lady and Paul was Wendy. We had our first Christmas - the house killed our Christmas tree completely so that not even a single needle was left at the end of December. We had our first big fight. We got cable! We painted the hallway. We painted the bathroom. We scraped some change together to decorate one room at a time. Our house slowly but surely became a home. As an added bonus, we love our neighbors and we had better - we have a direct view into their kitchen! We are so blessed to have such a beautiful place to live!

What's next?