The Pre-Pre Birth Story.

Henry's birth story begins not at his birth, or even at the beginning of labor..., but probably on my second date with Tim.  (No, we did not conceive Henry on our second date, how dare you think that!?)

On December 22, 2006, Tim and I had a lovely date at Longwood Gardens, followed by a delicious dinner at the Farmhouse, and were enjoying a nice drive home.  We had had a wonderful time, and the sparks were flying.  I realized quickly that this was either going to be a relationship with real potential, or we'd need to stop it pretty quickly, as we had many mutual friends.  So, hoping for the best, I dove right into the deal-breaker questions.  Like..., "Tim, do you want to have kids?"  Now, I didn't necessarily mean to ask whether Tim wanted to have kids with me, or right then, or anything like that, just that I wanted to know, needed to know, whether this relationship was going to go anywhere, and, if he said no, I'd end any future talk right there.  Thankfully, (after internally gasping and starting to sweat) Tim said yes.  With that out of the way, we began our relationship.  By June we were talking future, marriage, and families.  (So, naturally, we picked out names!)  By the end of the summer in 2007, Tim had asked my parents for permission to marry me, by October we were engaged, and we married on July 19, 2008.

On July 5, 2009, we found out that I was pregnant, with a due date of March 12, 2010.  I had a pretty easy pregnancy, all in all, with many worries alleviated by our doppler (rented from babybeats).  Any time I worried I hadn't felt the baby kick in a while, I'd go home and find the heartbeat, and relax.  It's a fabulous rental, definitely worth it for us.  I followed on line the baby's progression, and the days ticked by VERY SLOWLY.  As March 12 approached, I talked to my law firm about going part time, started looking for a nanny, we took all the baby classes we could, had a full natural birth plan in mind, and Tim and I put the finishing touches on the nursery.  We had had 2 showers, and "baby b" had everything he/she would need.  And then some.

To be continued...