Stella's Story Part 1: Conception

    Don't worry.  I won't talk about the actual conception but more about the events in our life surrounding the timing of Stella's conception.  Since I believe life begins at conception, that's where Stella's story has to start.  Jordec and I had been talking about having another baby for awhile but we weren't sure when to start trying.  Eliot was such a wonderful surprise for us that it seems odd to schedule time to make a baby.  We started trying and in the second month, we were pregnant.  I told Jordec that apparently all we had to do was look at each other and I would get pregnant.  We were so worried that it would take forever the second time around.  I guess God knows better.  With Eliot, I knew I was pregnant before I took the home test.  With Stella, I thought for sure that I wasn't pregnant.  I think it was the aspect that we were trying so therefore it must be harder to conceive.  Well, I took the home test on the day after Thanksgiving.  We were having Jordec's family over to celebrate Thanksgiving and I wanted to do it before they arrived.  I couldn't wait any longer.  I had already taken one a few days before that but that one was negative.  I expected this one to be negative too.  When I saw the double blue line, I was so excited!  I ran back to bed and told Jordec that he was going to be a Daddy again.  We were both so happy.  We discussed whether we should tell his family that day or not and we decided that we would.  We believed that no matter what happened, miscarriage or another problem, that we would tell our family about that too so there was no reason to keep anything secret.  They were so excited for us.  I told my parents but I waited until Christmas to tell the rest of my family as that would be the first time that I would be seeing them.  We wrote in their Christmas cards that we were expecting again.  Then we waited for them to open their cards.  Some people opened theirs right away and gave us hugs and lots of congratulations.  Other people put their cards away for later and then started getting confused at what the fuss was about.  I told them they better go read their cards!  They did and we were all so happy! 
    The next few months were fairly uneventful.  I had been feeling great until right about Christmas time.  Then I started having food aversions where nothing was appealing and some foods made me nauseous.  I always had to have some food in my stomach so I carried cereal with me wherever I went.  The nausea only lasted for about a month or so but the food aversions lasted throughout the pregnancy.  I am just now loving pasta again.  I rarely had it during the pregnancy, which is odd because it is my favorite.  Eliot started to understand that we had a baby in my belly as soon as I started showing.  He would always change his mind when we would ask if he thought it was going to be a boy or a girl.  He would usually say girl and sister but sometimes it was boy and brother.  Other times, Eliot would say that he wanted a girl brother, or a boy sister.  I can see how gender would be a confusing concept for a toddler though, so I'd say he did pretty good for a two year old. 
    The doctor visits had been going wonderfully and I was growing right on schedule.  My weight was staying under control and I passed the diabetes test.  Eliot would come with me to the appointments and he loved sitting in the chair with his drink and special treat.  The doctor would lube up my belly and move the wand to find the baby's heartbeat.  Eliot's eyes would get so big when he heard the heartbeat.  He would stare at my belly and he would talk about it for the rest of the day.  He also learned that he got a sucker at the end of each visit so he started to love going to the doctor for the baby.
    I worked on Eliot's bedroom to make some space to accommodate our new arrival.  I tend to do things early and I get paranoid that I am going to run out of time.  I must have tried a few different set ups of the furniture before I figured out which one I liked.  I had unpacked all of our gender neutral clothes for newborns and I couldn't wait to find out what we were having so I would know if I needed to buy girl's clothes or get out Eliot's old boy clothes.  I must have folded and re-folded those clothes a dozen times and I configured the bedroom. 
    Twenty-two weeks was the magic number for us to find out the sex of the baby.  It was coming fast and we were so excited.   We tried to wait as patiently as possible until April 5th.  We had our Dad's Day celebration the weekend before.  That is a family get-together where we remember my father who passed away when I was five.  I had such a great time with my family.  We talked about the baby and what gender everyone thought it would be.  Everyone guessed girl.  I guess they were all right.  I didn't want to guess.  I wanted to be happy with either gender.  The Tuesday after that weekend was the day that changed our lives but at that time, we were a happy family who was so blissful about our precious baby.  We had no idea what was coming.