The baby journey...

Might as well start from the beginning...

We took a test on January 20, 2011 that said *Positive*... we weren't really sure whether or not to believe it, so a second test was obviously necessary! : ) Well, I don't suppose two tests would lie now would they!? : )

I called the doctor's office the next day to tell them about our positive tests and to schedule an appointment to confirm. Unfortuntately, they didn't say, "Come in now, we're so excited for you!" like I'd hoped! We had to wait almost 2 weeks! Ugh!

So, on February 2, 2011 the doctor confirmed it... WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A BABY!!! : ) And, that tiny little dot...that's our little peanut! : ) They warned us before they did the ultrasound that it was still early and that we may not be able to hear the heartbeat. But, we could! It was the coolest sound ever! : )

We also found out that we were 7 weeks and that our due date is September 21, 2011!

The next day we made up really stupid excuses to go see our parents to tell them the news! My parents were the only ones gullable enough to not guess why we were coming! : ) We've got some pretty excited grandparents on our hands! : )

That weekend, I had already scheduled a girl's weekend at Laura's in Columbus with Laura, Lauren, Alli, Katie and Kris. So... now what!? Our entire plan for the evening revolved around staying home, drinking wine and catching up... how can I seriously look these girls in the eye and say NO to a glass (ok, multiple glasses) of wine without them questioning me!? Answer: I can't! So, plan B!

Alli and I were going to drive to Lauren's house so that the two of them could go for a run (overachievers). Lauren lives right down the street from Kauleen, so I called her, told her I was coming and planned to meet up for an hour or so before we headed to Columbus.

Kauleen picked me up at Lauren's and I was sweating bullets. I don't think she noticed though! : ) Armed with my ultrasound pictures, I followed her into the house and took a tour! Then, I basically just shoved the pictures in her face the second the tour of her house was over! And then, I started crying! Yes, I am SOOO excited about this baby, BUT... Kauleen's getting married on September 24... in Naples! I am devastated to have to miss my best friend's wedding! : ( I was beyond nervous to tell her that I'd be missing it!!! But, of course, because she's Kauleen, she was so sweet about it and just told me how excited she was for me! Great friend! : )

So, step one of the baby reveal was complete.

Kauleen dropped me back off at Lauren's. Alli and I went to Kris' so that we could all ride down to Columbus together. Once we got to Laura's, Kris left immediately to meet with a photographer, leaving Alli, Laura and I at the house. Laura gave us a tour of their new house and offered us wine. Alli was on medication and wasn't supposed to drink, so she declined. SWEET! : ) So, I just said, I'll just wait until everyone else gets here. Laura looked at me like I had 3 heads, but said ok! : ) Kris got back and THE first thing out of her mouth was, Why aren't you guys drinking!? Crap, now what!? : ) So, Alli explained her reasoning and I just said I'd just wait since Alli couldn't drink anyway. So stupid, but whatever, I was grasping at straws at this point! : ) FINALLY, Lauren and Katie arrived, took a quick tour and then we all stood around in Laura's kitchen catching up. I couldn't wait any longer! I snuck off, grabbed my ultrasound pictures and held them up for the girls to see. It took a second for anyone to realize what in the world I had, but the second they did, the screaming, etc. commenced! : ) Katie started running circles around the island screaming, Alli started crying and everyone else basically stood there with their mouths hanging open! : ) I only wish I had the whole thing on video somehow!!! : ) It was awesome!

Once I got back home the next day, I called Audrey and Brandy to fill them in and let them know that they would soon be Aunt Audrey and Aunt Brandy! : ) I LOVED being able to tell my best friends and couldn't wait for the moment when I could just tell anyone and everyone!!!

I'm normally pretty laid back; however, I was COMPLETELY neurotic about finding out the sex of this baby!!! I have NO idea how people go the entire 9 months (who am I kidding... 10 months) without knowing! At one of our doctor's appointments, we found out that we wouldn't have another ultrasound until we were 20 weeks, so we'd have to wait FOREVER to find out if we were having a boy or a girl! SERIOUSLY!? Stress is not good for pregnant people... what are they trying to do to me!?

So, Masters week arrives. My dad gets tickets for the practice round on Tuesday and (finally) takes me!!! I was SO excited and knew that my one purchase from the merchandise shop would be a cute Masters onesie for my sweet little baby! Well, no such luck... they had adorable baby things, but they were either pink or they were blue! I was SO annoyed! : ) I got home that night, looked at Clay and said, you have to get one of those pink or blue outfits when you go to Augusta on Sunday! His response was that we weren't going to get both just for the sake of it, so it just wasn't going to happen this year. Wrong again! (I may have had a pregnancy flip-out moment where I plugged my ears and stomped around like a 3 year old... thank you Alli for teaching me that trick! ;) ) So, I went online, found a 3D ultrasound place in Atlanta that my friend, Bethenny, told me about and booked an 8:45pm appointment! Clay couldn't come up with an excuse not to go since he was in town and it didn't interfere with work or, more importantly, golf!
Thursday, April 7, 2011 at 8:45pm, we were sitting in a tiny little office in Buckhead waiting to find out what we were having. Clay started lecturing me about how unhappy he'd be that we drove all the way there if we weren't able to find out because we were only 16 weeks! Crap... I hadn't even thought about that! I was only thinking about what my reaction would be when the ultrasound tech said, IT'S A GIRL! I might as well have been rehearsing for my Oscars acceptance speech! I had it planned out... I should definitely cry! : )

So, we head into the room and the lady tells us that she's really hopeful that our baby will cooperate since we were the last of the day and all the other babies had been difficult. Clay just shot me this look like, yeah, you and me both lady, we just drove over an hour for this!

I took a deep breath, got on the table and got ready. She put the ultrasound wand on my stomach and about 3 seconds later said, well someone's not shy, it's definitely a boy! I'm sorry lady, did you just call my beautiful little GIRL a BOY!? She did! And then proceeded to show us his penis! Girls don't have penises! I was definitely in shock and my rehearsed reaction went down the drain! : )

I don't think I said two words on the way home! I was in complete shock! Of course, I have NO idea why I was in such shock, but I was! There's a 50/50 chance here and somehow I managed to choose wrong. I'm pretty sure I thought that made me a terrible mother! Great logic! : )

So, don't get me wrong, I was in no way upset that it was a boy, I was just shocked! And, it took a good week I think for that shock to leave so that I was left with nothing but pure joy! : )

I am SOOO excited that we're having a little boy and can't wait to meet him!!! I sure hope he likes the airplane nursery that I picked out the very next day! : )

I also hope he likes the BLUE seersucker Masters outfit that we got him on Sunday! And yes, it was worth it! : )

We really wanted to be able to tell our parents in person and with all of them present at one time! This is much easier said than done! We had to wait until Easter weekend (and Asa's Birthday weekend) for it to happen. That meant that we had another secret to keep... UGH!

I also wanted to let our close friends know in a fun way too, so I bought blue helium balloons, wrote IT'S A BOY! on them and boxed them up! (When the box was opened, the balloon flew out making our announcement for us.) I took the boxes to UPS on Friday, April 22, 2011 and made sure that they would all arrive at their destinations on Monday, April 25, 2011.

Then, on Saturday, April 23, 2011, we picked up the gender reveal cake that we had ordered from Bee's Knees here in Athens and headed to Milledgeville for the weekend. We had dinner with Asa and Pattie that night (and Pattie even asked point blank about when we'd find out the sex of the baby... lying is NOT fun) and then had our Easter/B-day dinner with the whole family planned for the next day.

So, Sunday, April 24, 2011: Janice, Asa and Pattie all came over to my Mom and Dad's house for an Easter/B-day dinner. We had a great meal, regardless of that fact that I was getting more and more nervous by the second! After everyone finished eating, I went out to get the cake and Clay explained to everyone that it would be a very special cake. Everyone was confused! : ) I walked out holding a cake that had "It's a..." written on the top and had pink and blue question marks all over it. Janice immediately screamed and wanted to dig into it with her hands! : ) I'm not sure what everyone else thought, but I do know that my Mom was utterly confused! : ) Clay got out his new Flip video camera and asked me to explain what was going on for everyone. We gave Asa the knife and said that he could do the honor since it was his B-day. Janice wasn't exactly ok with not being in control of this situation and the video is hilarious proof! : ) I explained to everyone that when Asa cut into the cake, if it was blue, we're having a boy, if it was pink, we're having a girl... easy enough. Asa started cutting and realized he didn't have a plate to put the cake on when he cut it (so cute)... Janice did not care! She grabbed his hand trying to force the cutting several times while we all laughed! It was hysterical! Finally, a piece was cut and pulled out to reveal... BLUE!!! Everyone screamed! : ) My mom was excited and pissed at the same time! Her first comment was, I can't believe you knew and didn't tell me!!! : ) I guess someone doesn't like surprises! ; )
It was such a fun way to make the announcement and I think, once everyone got over being lied to again, they were really excited! : )

On Monday, April 25, 2011, I delivered the balloon boxes to the people who live in Athens and then waited for the phone calls to come in! : )

It was SO much fun to hear everyone's reaction and I even got pictures of Kris and Brandy opening their boxes (thanks Blake and Jimmy)! : ) Priceless!!!

So all of our secrets were finally out... whew!!! : )

We are SO excited about sweet little Asa Clayton Alliston, III!!! : )

And, we got to see him again on Thursday, May 5, 2011!

We had our big doctor's appointment with the anatomy scan. Everything looked and measured great AND we found out that our Quad-Screen resluts all came back negative! Yay! : )

We also got TONS of pictures of our sweet little boy! Here's one of them:

Needless to say, we have A LOT to do before he gets here in September (maybe October), but we can't wait to meet our little Asa! : )

What a journey!