Halfway there!

This past week marked the 20th week of my pregnancy!  (Well, 18 weeks since little baby Larson has technically been hanging out) :)  It is both awesome and a little crazy to think that we are halfway through with this whole pregnancy thing.  Since we don't know if this will/should be our only pregnancy or not, I am really trying to make the most of it.  Does it suck to have tremendous amounts of backpain?  Yes.  Do I hate being so tired all the time (which I'm also attributing to being on my feet most of the day in our wicked hot, non-AC school building)?  Of course.  But these are such small prices to pay for our soon to be little son's arrival! 

This week I decided to treat myself and "splurge" on a very cute diaper bag that was on sale (yes, even my splurging will always involve sales/clearances) at my favorite neighborhood boutique.  Diaper bags can be tricky because I wanted something fun/hip, but also had to remember that Matt will be carting it around quite a bit, so it needed to be somewhat gender neutral (in so far as a purse-like object can be gender neutral).  After deliberating for awhile, this is what I picked out:

So, that was a fun purchase to get me even more excited for baby Larson (whom we are trying to pick out a name for shortly... we've got some good ones in mind and will keep everyone posted!).  We are still working on finishing up registering (I chose Target and BabiesRUs, though I'm hoping to get everything onto the Target registry if possible... everyone knows that's my favorite store in the world) :)  and trying to decide on a nursery theme.  We have one in mind but are having trouble finding the crib bedding we want... and without the bedding, I can't decide on paint colors, and without paint colors, we can't decide on anything else.  Not a terrible dilemma to be in, but a dilemma none the less.  Who would have known that navy blue (ish) bedding would be so tough to find?  Not me.  We are also super excited about the donations/loans of baby stuff already being offered from friends (and friends of friends) - having absolutely no baby goods prior to about a month ago, we are more than grateful for everything coming our way, that's for sure.

Anyway, all else is good here in Denver.  Aside from the awful heat of course.  Until it gets cooler, I will feel no shame in napping every day after school.  We got to hear the baby's heartbeat on Tuesday, and that was of course incredible.  Sadly no ultrasound since we got one with the high risk doc and will be getting another one in a few weeks with him again... so that will have to wait.  Oh, and here is a "baby bump" picture from last night.  Yes, we went to 7-11 for slurpees and a Red Box rental... and no, the picture isn't fabulous.  But, you can kind of tell that my tummy is getting bigger (than it already was ;) )! 

Fun times in Fort Fun & Old Friends

For our friend John's birthday, his wife was kind (and smart) enough to organize a day on a boat up in Fort Collins this past weekend. 

Side note: If you're not in Colorado, you may be unaware that we have had a pretty hot summer... we broke yet another record today (and have I mentioned that my school's building has NO air conditioning??).  My car's thermometer has been reading over 100 for about 8 days straight, but apparently the "official" readings have only been around 98.  I think we're catching a break tomorrow, with a high of only 97.  Which means my classroom may only be 92 degrees.  Lucky me!!  (insert much sarcasm.... hey, I'm pregnant, I feel that it's completely okay for me to complain about this heat)

ANYWAY - Saturday's trip up to Fort Collins was a great way to bring an unofficial close to summer.  The sky was blue, the water was (mostly) warm, the friends were fabulous, and it was an all around excellent way to celebrate John's birthday and a fabulous August day.  In addition to cruising (and anchoring) around Horsetooth Reservoir, we also visited two of Colorado's finest breweries (New Belgium and O'Dells).  Give these places a visit if you never have.  Totally worth a trip up to the land of the Rams.  I guess they need to have something redeeming in that town ;)

Below are some pictures from the day! 

In other goings on around Larsonland, I was lucky enough to see not one, but several friends from out of town last week!  The Nagels, some of my most favorite people in the world but whom I rarely ever get to see (insert sad face), were in town visiting family and were able to stop by for dinner!  Since they are back in CO so infrequently, we also were joined by Kari and Jeff with little baby Noah (who is now walking!) for dinner while Matt was out in Salt Lake City for work.  The three boys were adorable, and also taught me quite a bit about how much work we need to do to our house to make it baby-ready! (i.e. a LOT)  Thanks boys :)

The cutest little brothers:

And to make me even happier, my dear friend Matt was in town from Seattle with his wife and new son (Henry - cute name, huh???).  Sadly, we didn't get to spend much time with them, but even an hour's worth of catching up was really wonderful for my soul!  Matt is also in an amazingly awesome band in Seattle that seems to be on the up and up in the world-o-music.  Keep an eye out for their band, Pickwick!  And when they are big and famous, I can say that I knew him (and played in an even more amazing band with him) when! :)  (hehe)

If you have a second, I'd highly encourage you to watch this video of them.  I'm telling you, they are awesome:

(The original blogpost written about the band from this video taping is here)

But let's be honest....where he REALLY got his start (lest he forget):

Ok, more info to come later, which I'll try to update the blog world on tomorrow.  No promises.  Signing off from a hot Denver. 

A good time to be grateful!

The Larson crew has had a good week - the lows of the previous week's news (and subsequent tears) were slowly pushed out of our minds and hearts as we were flooded with the love and support of family and friends.  And for that, we are SO grateful.  We are grateful for a visit from Matt's sister and her soon to be husband; grateful for the calls from those of you expressing your love and sharing in our pain; grateful for a fun night out with friends eating Thai food and watching Woody Allen's recent flick at the Mayan Theatre; grateful for the distractions of school (and my awesome new site school/teacher) and work (Matt's upcoming trips to Salt Lake City and Singapore); grateful for dear friends coming over to eat my homemade dinner (and even saying they loved it!); grateful for new friends from afar who touched my heart in such a short amount of time... and the list goes on. 

We are also learning to be grateful in this precarious situation we've found ourselves in.  We trust that God is at work in all of this, and despite the unknown future, we are grateful for the little one growing and developing at this very minute.  We are grateful for the lessons in patience, trust, love, and grace that we continue to be learning through all of this.  And though we did not love hearing some of the news at this week's appointment with the high risk doctor, we were SO grateful to find out the sex of our little peanut early! 

We're having a boy!!

True to their awesomeness, our friends here in Denver met up with us that night (extremely last minute) to celebrate the big reveal with drinks at Beatrice & Woodsley.  It was a really wonderful time to share our news and celebrate our new SON.  I know he will be so loved.  No question.

We have plenty of time to talk about this little baby boy, but for now, I can already say that Matt is busy daydreaming about adding one more Twins fan to the world while simultaneously scheduling his future piano lessons :)  So much fun to daydream!

And here are some of the not so clear ultrasound pics of the little guy - we go back in four weeks for more, and hopefully we can get him to be a little more cooperative next time :)

We love you Baby Boy Larson!

Goodbye summer

I can't thank everyone enough for the amazing words of encouragement and support that Matt and I have received over the last week.  It honestly has been a really difficult week for us, with me internalizing a lot of it and not wanting to talk too much about it out loud.  For some reason, that part is a little too difficult, or maybe just too "real".  We are still in the process of processing, something I'm sure we'll do for awhile.  Thinking about the what ifs, the could bes, and the what abouts... and trying not to spend too much time thinking about the future future.  I am thankful for our kind friends and family offering such sweet and supportive prayers/emails/cards/voicemails/texts.  They mean more to us than you know.

And while we await our consultation appointment with the high risk doc on Monday (still not sure exactly what will be happening there, but I'll try to keep you posted), I had the pleasure of starting my final student teaching gig this week!  I will be teaching at the Denver Center for International Studies, a public 6-12 school about 4.5 blocks from my house here in Baker.

Only two days in (boring, professional development days...), and I'm already loving it.  I was so hesitant to see the summer go, but being back at school gives me such a great feeling... like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.  Don't ask me about that "great feeling" in about a month or two when I'm also swamped with my grad classes, but for now, I'm soaking it all in and getting really excited to meet my students next week!  This Fall will be an interesting one as my belly grows, we prepare the nursery, and I balance all my school work/teaching... but I am also thankful for the distractions in my brain and heart so that I can hopefully try to enjoy as much of this pregnancy as possible.  I don't want to let these precious moments fly by too quickly.  But yet, I can't wait to meet this little guy/girl and begin tackling all that there is in store, CF or no CF.

What Are The Odds?

Being pregnant is definitely not what TV/movies paint it out to be... but I guess nothing ever is.  So far, it has been a roller coaster of emotions, lots of nausea, and a lot of "is there really anything in there?".  The excitement always seems to outweigh the anxiety, and registering for all the cute and helpful baby "stuff" certainly adds some fun to these first few months where I don't yet feel kicking but know there's a little bugger in there growing and bouncing around.  Being a pretty anxious person in general (I'm hoping you have never seen me fly), I spend a lot of time wondering how the little guy/girl is doing and hoping that he/she is doing just fine.  Like I said in my last post, the 4 weeks in between each appointment can really wear on you when you just don't know what's really going on in there!  My doctor always tried to reassure me that the odds of something happening are so small once we reached the 12 and 16 week marks that it makes no sense to think anything other than that it's all going well.  The odds are something like less than 1% of women carrying babies with strong heartbeats after 16 weeks will miscarry.  This, in all logical thinking, should give me peace of mind.

And then there are odds for many other things... the odds that the baby will have a birth defect, Down's Syndrome (which I was told are higher for me delivering at 31 than they would have been if I was a few years younger), and any other number of health or developmental issues.  (See why I'm anxious?)  And yet, the odds (and my doctor) tell me that I shouldn't worry.  1 in 1000, 1 in 750, or even 1 in 100 are pretty good odds for a mother to be.  And this should comfort me...

That is until the odds don't seem to matter anymore.  Or they get smaller.  And then all of a sudden odds seem ridiculous.  That 1 person in 1000 certainly didn't benefit from any odds.  Neither did that 1 in 100.  And recently, Matt and I both learned this reality firsthand. 

After declining all of the genetic testing for our baby, I somehow decided that it would be okay to get screened for the cystic fibrosis gene - it was a simple cheek swab that would tell me if I was a carrier for this disease or not.  Seemed pretty easy!  The odds of even being a carrier are 1 in 30, so I figured I may as well find out.  With no family history of cystic fibrosis that I could find, I was pretty shocked to learn two weeks later that indeed I was a carrier of the gene (a recessive gene, hence the lack of family history).  I was told not to worry, the chances that Matt had the gene as well were again 1 in 30 (so the chances of us BOTH having it were extremely small), and we both had to be carriers for any child to be born with the disease.  And so, Matt dutifully went in to the doctor's office, got his cheek swabbed, and waited.

Two weeks later, I got the call from my OB that - odds be damned - Matt is indeed a carrier of the CF gene as well.  Who would have known?  This information was followed shortly with something along the lines of..."this means that your baby has a 1 in 4 chance of being born with CF...", "keep in mind that there's a 75% chance that  your baby will be born healthy...", "some CF gene-carrying parents choose to do IVF for future children so as to make sure the gene is not passed on...", "I'd like you to make an appointment with a high risk OB just for a consultation...", and some other stuff that is all a little blurred at the moment.  One in four.  That's all that kept running through my head.

After many many, many tears, I came home and did a little research about CF (feel free to visit www.cff.org) and was happy to learn that many CF kids go on to live happy, generally healthy lives, but sad to read the staggering fact that "the predicted median age of survival for a person with CF is in the mid-30s."  Wow... 


I'm not quite ready to talk about this all that much, but I did want to get my thoughts out there for now (the tears don't come as easily as when I say it out loud).  Matt and I are both digesting/processing all of this information and praying that our baby, with CF or not, is happy and healthy.  We trust that God has a plan that is bigger than our own, both now and in the future, and that our baby is in His hands for the next five months (and forever).  As a friend was gracious in reminding me, I feel comfort that God is more powerful than me or any doctor.  And as she has offered to pray with Eph. 3:20 in mind ("now to Him who is able to do IMMEASURABLY more than all we can ask or imagine..."), so too do we.  No matter what, we know that he/she will be incredibly loved by the two of us and by the amazing friends and family surrounding us.

But, still.  I hate odds.

Heartbeats and the Family Band

Last weekend was a great one - a terrific way to start bringing the summer to a close (though these crazy hot temps lately have made it feel like the middle of summer...I'll pretend that's not the case.).  First, I got to hear our sweet baby's heartbeat for the very first time on Friday!  I mean, it was incredible.  The four weeks in between each appointment these days seem to drag on and on while I sit and wonder how on earth the baby is doing... so it was both a relief and a moment of sheer joy getting to finally hear that little bugger's heart beating strongly.  We find out the sex in three weeks - August 23rd!!  Can't wait.

Then, Friday afternoon we drove down to the Music on the Rocks festival at Sipapu Ski Resort outside Taos, NM.  Our family band, Main Street Garage (last year named "Etc.", and next year named "Sundown Sound"), got to play once again, and we had a blast!  Rain came down for part of the day, but by the time we were up, the clouds had parted, the sky was blue, and we were all sweating (and smiling) once again.

Matt and I were lucky enough to have not one, not two, but SIX friends make the trek down to New Mexico for the show.  Wow.  We felt so loved.  They didn't even know what they were in for!!  We can't thank them enough - the support was amazing!

Here's a video montage from some of our songs (though, I'm not singing or drumming in any of these clips since I was taking the video):

Main Street Garage at Sipapu 2011 from Ali Larson on Vimeo.


And here are some fun photos from the weekend: