It's a Fetus now!!

"Starting with this week, the [parasite] is now called a fetus (previously an embryo). The most critical part of the baby's development is over. This is a period of rapid growth, and the baby is about an inch or so in length at the beginning of the week and will be about 2 inches by the end of the week."

Pregnancy Week by Week (Week 11)

The next Spiderman?

I'll be honest, the idea of giving birth (or rather Bobbie Jo giving birth) to the next superhero, is really pretty cool. Having our own little Spiderman (or Spiderwoman), running around the house, swinging from the ceiling and tying the cats up in webbing- would be pretty sweet. However our doctors and the hospital that Bobbie Jo works at have assured us we have no better chance than anyone else in the world for this to happen.

We have had a few people ask, as Bobbie Jo is now a full time x-ray technician, whether the radiation that she encounters on a daily basis could give the baby special powers. Apparently the radiation that an x-ray tech receives is one one-thousandth of the radiation that the person getting the x-ray receives. She is now wearing a third radiation badge (with a picture of a tiny baby on it) to monitor her belly's radiation exposure, in addition to the two others that she already wears. Her job couldn't be any safer. People who work in front of a computer monitor all day receive comparable radiation to what she (and the little one) are getting.

So, it looks like we can rule out our own little addition to the X-Men, though rumor has it these little things are a handful, even without additional powers.

An article of Interest

See the following article:
Woman Overjoyed By Giant Uterine Parasite

Our first appointment

We met with the baby-doctor's assistant's intern on Wednesday. It was mostly a "fill out paperwork" and "what to do / not to do" session. I felt absolutely worthless and was excited with the simple tasks I had given to me. I made notes in my planner and was made fun of. It is becoming apparent (only 9 weeks in) that as far as the doctor's office is concerned, I am unnecessary throughout this whole process. I'm glad that my bride feels otherwise.
Bobbie Jo has been really tired, and while she's not barfing much (should I have phrased that differently?), she has been nauseous from morning to night almost every day. She's also been very tired. I'm trying to understand everything I can about how this parasitic* organism living inside of her affects her, but I still can't wrap my brain around a tiny bit of what she's going through. She's been a trooper. We've been given five or six books by Steve and Becky and have been reading those. I know way to much about way too many things that I'm not going to write about here (and a few things I'm storing away in my brain).

Thanks for reading, we'll post more after the next appointment on September 6th (maybe even a picture!!)

-James

*Parasite-[par-uh-sahyt] an animal or plant that lives in or on a host (another animal or plant); it obtains nourishment from the host without benefiting or killing the host

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The Timeline so far

As we are starting this blog about a month after finding out about the pending baby, here is what has happened so far:

July 14th- Bobbie Jo decides to take a pregnancy test. Much to both of our bewilderment, the test results come back as " | |" denoting a positive test. I quickly run to D&W to purchase another test, which returns a "+ |" (positive again). We are thrilled, and terrified at the same time. We are extremely lucky, but this happened a lot quicker than we expected.

July 17th-We leave Grand Rapids for my brother Ben's wedding. When we arrive in Minneapolis we tell Ben and Angie that they will soon have a nephew (or niece). We figure it's best to tell them now rather than when they are trying to feed Bobbie Jo shots. Bobbie Jo spends the week of festivities drinking non-alcoholic beverages made to look like "adult drinks". As far as we know, everybody bought our ruse.

Weekend of August 10th-We tell our parents. All of whom are thrilled about becoming grandparents. Camille is trying to figure out what she wants to be called (Busia and Grandma are currently out), and Paul's brain is spinning with plans on what he can build for this new kid. Sharon shed so many tears of happiness, we were scarred she was going to fall down. This kid is going to have five terrific grandparents!!

August 15th (in 2 days) - We have our first "informational" meeting with the baby doctor. We expect this will be a "stop smoking crack"/ "James needs to start pulling his weight around the house" type-meeting. Even this (expected) boring meeting can't come quickly enough.

We'll keep you updated.

Our New Blog

Given the major changes that are about to take place in our rather ordinary lives, I thought that it might be nice to put together this blog. There are too many people we don't get to talk to often enough and I'd like them to be able to see what we are up to, and also to create a record of what we are going through - something we can look back on over the coming months & years.

We plan to put pictures and videos up here whenever we can, and update it frequently with whatever new info we have on ourselves, especially anything we have on the pending baby residing in Bobbie Jo's tummy.

I expect March 20th is going to be here sooner than we know it.