Dear friends and family,

We, Allison & Derrick, are having a baby! Our little boy is due October 23rd, 2022 and we are so excited! We want to share the beginning of our grand adventure with you.

Baby giving a thumbs up at 20-weeks!

We did a lot of traveling in 2019. We went to Asia and back twice (China & Hong Kong on the first trip and Japan on the second). All of this was miraculously timed before COVID-19 became a full-scale pandemic. The original plan was to try for kids (our maybe-baby time) in 2020. But as we kept an eye on the worsening pandemic numbers, we opted to wait.

By the end of 2021, as you're all aware, the coronavirus looked like it was transitioning from pandemic to epidemic. We were also fully vaxxed and boosted by this point so we felt it reasonably safe to start actually trying for kids.

I know some people struggle with becoming pregnant, but given family history, we were hopeful that we'd be lucky. It didn't take very long. Right around our birthdays we bought a pack of pregnancy tests. After a hilarious first attempt wherein we broke the test, the very next day I tested again - two weeks after our first try. There may have been a wager involving ice cream over if we were pregnant so soon. Derrick called it, we were pregnant!

Allison and Derrick on the last hike before the texas heat kicked in and baby is born!

Sonogram at 20-weeks!

First Trimester

The first trimester started off pretty easy. Just some bloating and some soreness. Fatigue soon set in, prompting me to start taking naps. And for those of you who know me, naps are not a thing I'm naturally good at, but I was tired. Derrick may have more than a few photos of me conked out on the couch.

A little more than half way through the first trimester, the fatigue was particularly bad, sometimes triggering migraines, and then the morning sickness would poke its head in. Saltines, chicken broth, rice, and cheerios were my friends during this time.

Second Trimester

Fortunately, as we neared the Second trimester, my stomach settled and I got my energy back! It was around this time that we also did a genetic test to make sure there were no at-risk issues that would crop up and an initial gender test. Our little one is low-risk for all the negative genetic markers and tested as a boy!

A few more weeks zipped by and then at 20-weeks we did an anatomy scan. Boy confirmed! We got to see all 10 fingers and all 10 toes. He even graced us with a thumbs up as he rolled around during the sonogram. We could see good blood flow (ain't technology a wonder?), a healthy heart, and brain development in this scan. His spine is also looking good.

Not long after this scan, I took a small road trip up to meet some colleagues in real life. I surprised them with a bump, but they were all too polite to say anything until I spilled the beans. This news also likely explained every time I joined a meeting at work, I was eating.

As of writing this, we're just about to start the third trimester. My belly is getting pretty big and it's very obviously a baby bump now. There is lots of movement. Our kiddo is learning kicks and palm heel strikes already!

Lovecraft is super excited he's no longer going to be the baby of the family

Another pic of the growing boy

The Nursery

We've cleared out our gym to be the nursery. We've chosen a paint color, a sage green, for the walls and are expecting a paint crew to come in soon to paint the nursery for us.

We've also purchased a lot of the nursery furniture. Once the painting is done we can pull the rest of the nursery together in plenty of time before he arrives.

A conundrum of good fortune

Our journey has been very smooth so far. I've got a great doctor whom I really like, a wonderful and supportive partner who has picked up a lot of slack, we've got excellent insurance, and I work from home so I'm quite comfortable maintaining my work-life balance, while saving up extra PTO for when kiddo arrives.

We've also been fortunate enough that our meticulous planning has been successful. We've had no surprises or unexpected health issues arise, the nursery is nearly all together, and a lot of our immediate and future needs are taken care of. All in all, we've been very lucky.

Not every mom-to-be is so fortunate, however, and instead of piling up more good fortune, we'd love to spread the good fortune. We've found a great non-profit called Every Mother Counts that can help.

Share the love

For many women across the globe, pregnancy is not always welcome news. For some it means economic or even physical hardships, depending on where they live. Staggeringly, a woman dies every two seconds from childbirth around the world. Pregnancy is an inherently risky condition, but with proper access to affordable healthcare it doesn't have to be. This non-profit's aim is to help with that by supporting mothers and helping them be successful in their pregnancy through access to nutrition, healthcare and support.

Every Mother Counts invests in organizations working to improve access to quality, respectful, and equitable maternity care. In 2019, 76.4% of the funds they've raised went directly towards their program to help mothers around the world. You can see the breakdown on Charity Navigator if you want to verify for yourself.

The best gift you can give us as a family is to help other, less fortunate families. Please join us in investing in a charity like this and spreading good fortune around, helping expecting and new mothers across the world, and making a difference far and wide.

Donate today!

Thanks

Given the state of the world today, and considering how lucky we've been so far, I feel it is in our best interests to help others. That's why we prefer a contribution to a charity in lieu of a gift. That being said, we do still have a registry at Target. It's a private registry so you will need to use this link to access it.

For those of you who know us, you know we like to heavily research and be exacting in our shopping and spending. This is especially true for high-priced items. All of this plus the global supply chain issues meant that we often had to wait for the items we wanted to be back in stock. Once a lot of those items came back in stock, they didn't stay in stock for long (Derrick bought the breast pump in the middle of a Doctors appointment because he got an in-stock notification! It was sold out 20 minutes later.). We didn't want to risk the items chosen to go out of stock or not be carried by the particular registry we went with. This meant we had to be decisive about ordering the items we wanted as soon as they became available.The big items like a stroller, car seat, breast pump and bottle accessories, diaper bag, moses basket and furniture have already been purchased since we had to buy while the buying was good. This means, the list we do have with Target is mostly the smaller or fun items.

All things considered, a donation would be a better investment, not just for our family, but communities around the world.

Thanks for thinking of us and our growing family!

Much love,

Allison & Derrick