The Post (Most of) You've All Been Waiting For!

For nearly five months, I've been sitting on this news.  It's been such a long time really that I don't know where to start with the telling.

Once upon a time, on February 25, we found out I was pregnant.

This had been our second attempt with a clinic in Seville, and when I was staring at the bloodwork printout displaying the varrying levels of human chorionic gonadotophin, trying to understand what my 118mUI/ml meant, I tried not to get my hopes up; but since about a week after the insemination, I had known deep down that this time I was pregnant.

"Enhorabuena!" was the answer I got when I called the clinic to report my results.  I couldn't hold back my smile and a shy, "gracias" in response.  It was official.  I was 2 weeks pregnant and even though most doctors will advise against sharing the news until after the first trimester, Angelines and I were immediately calling friends and family.  Living in La Roda, it didn't take long for the whole town to know my "estado", as they say.  So then why wait so long for a blog post?

I suppose the reason is partially just because it's taken me a while to assimilate the reality that there is a little being growing inside me.  I was initially very annoyed that my in-laws had started sharing the news because when people would congratulate me, I almost didn't know what to say.  I didn't have morning sickness at all, my breasts weren't tender, I didn't have a heightened sense of smell, there were no cravings...  I didn't feel any different than I had four weeks earlier and yet the bloodwork said that a tiny blastocyst had burrowed its way into my uterine lining and its cells were rapidly dividing to become my future child--just a little hard to wrap one's mind around.

These are the very first baby pictures.

At seven weeks we had our first ultrasound: a tiny white blob floating on a screen of black; but suddenly the doctor turned on the sound and sure enough there was a tiny heart racing somewhere inside--a strong, pounding cut-time rythm beating out of the blackness.  Once again, I couldn't hold back my smile.

About the time of the ultrasound, I began to be constantly starving.  Regardless of what I ate, or how much, I was hungry again every hour.  It seemed that the little bean inside me had an appetite even bigger than my own.  I was beside myself when it came time for my afternoon classes.  Sometimes I would take something to eat (of course the kids reminded me smugly that there was no eating in class!), but most of the time I suffered through and did by best to ignore the rumblings of my tummy.

The crazy hunger abated around week 10 or 11 and since then it's been nothing but normal.  Until just about two weeks ago, I wasn't even showing at all.  So if it hadn't been for doctor visits and the reassurance of that staticky, black and white image to tell me otherwise, I would never suspect I was pregnant.

Since the beginning there wasn't really any question that we would find out the sex of our baby.  It just seemed a given.  I can see the fun in holding out 'til the end, but I don't have patience for that!  This past Monday we had our most recent ultrasound and the doctor was able to confirm that we're having a little girl. :)  We are thrilled.

Ever since I was little I've dreampt of having a baby girl of my own; but when we decided to take the steps and undergo treatment, I had to face the reality that there was a 50% chance I would have a little boy.  Over the course of a year or so I have begun getting used to that posible reality, so much so that when people would ask what I "wanted" I could honestly reply that I didn't care.  My gut told me from the beginning that this baby was a girl, but I didn't want to be disappointed if I found out otherwise.  I was starting to think that it might be fun to have a boy, something different after having been brought up in a household of girls!  So, ironically, there was a tiny part of me that was disappointed when we discovered we were not going to have a niño.  Still, the fact remained that I much prefered the name we had picked out for a baby girl than for a little boy.

Her name is Emily Alejandra Wilbanks Granados.

My aunt sent me this poem just after I announced to family that our little bump was a girl named Emily:

Naming the Baby

by Faith Shearin

When you are dreaming of the name
you are also dreaming of who they
might be. They are invented in darkness —
under cloak of skin — and, for the better
part of a year, are a swelling
or a set of symptoms. The name
books are like a box of chocolates
and when you open them you see
how many kinds there really are.
There are names of people you
have known and disliked and names
that make the wrong sounds and names
that suggest your child will be
like everyone else's. There are names
that turn your child into a character
in a novel and names that recall
the time when your great grandmother
was young. Naming the baby is a way
of dreaming about a creature who is
almost but not quite. It is a way of
imagining the soul of a person you
are making but have not made.
The name is the first way you see
the baby: their title, the syllables
that conjure a shape from the lantern.

"Naming the Baby" by Faith Shearin from The Empty House. © Word Press, 2008.

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Nothing could be more true.  In the weeks even prior to the insemination I was dreaming about a baby and dreaming about a name.  I am a strong believer in the importance of names--I would be a very differnt person if my name were Jessica or Lisa or Mandy.

A name should mean something.  I have always been proud to have two family names (Viola Fenn and Pearl Idelia were two of my great-grandmothers) and I think they bind me to my roots, to who I am beyond myself in very special way.  I want my daughter's name to do the same for her.

Emily was my sister and Alejandro was Angelines's father.  I never had a doubt that Emily would be part of her name, and Angelines knew it too.  In Spain having a middle name isn't as common as in the States, but I insisted that our baby have two names.  It's only fair to choose one from one side and another from the other, right?  And besides, this baby is an American Spaniard, she needs names accordingly.  

I thought up names and combinations and ran them by Angelines, but it wasn't until Emily Alejandra rolled off my tongue that I knew we'd found our baby.

We love you!

Here she is!