My wife ran the 5K of the Heartbeat Run this morning and I am super proud of her. Running has been a part of K's life since well before I met her but it has proved difficult to maintain during pregnancy.

K has decided to re-dub Darwintoo as Stormageddon: Dark Lord of All. It has a lovely ring to it, doesn't it? Stormy for short, perhaps? And who knew that my wife could speak baby?

Nothing is truly official in this era of virtual socialising until it is up on Facebook. So, K and I are now actually expecting a baby!

There is no doubt that our child is going to be a geek (or if she manages to escape that part of her nurturing, she will be a non-geek who is very well versed is geekdom!). To properly start her journey towards geekhood, a pregnancy announcement involving Doctor Who and Star Wars was absolutely necessary. K is a Whovian  and the best birthday gift she has ever given me is Star Wars sheets (nuff said!).

Apparently, neck folds are wonderful diagnostic tools. Between 11weeks and 13weeks 6days, the fluid between the folds in the foetus' neck can be measured in a Nuchal Translucency Scan. These measurements are correlated with maternal blood to give a probability ratio for the risk of Trisomy (a third copy of) in chromosome 13, 18 or 21.

Who knows what criteria we should be using to pick an OB? I sure don't! I read some reviews online but I'm pretty certain that most people on Rate MDs are disgruntled so the bias might be a little skewed (in general, the gruntled are not too motivated to post).

In the end we chose based on which hospital looked like a winner from its online tour (cuz it is very likely that some other doc will be on call when we deliver, anyway) and on a recommendation from K's co-worker's-sister-who-is-an-OB-on-mat-leave.

We got to meet our new doc today and she is friendly and efficient! Most importantly, we got to see Darwintoo again (although she is tough to make out in that wee pic)!

K has been on a suite of drugs off and on since we started our fertility  journey 16 months ago. From injections and inhalants to pills and insertions, K has done it all. From Clomid, Bromocriptine and Chorionic Gonadtropin to Menopur, Puragon, Lupron and Orgalutran to Suprefact, Estrace and the dreaded Prometrium (each of them sound like sci-fi planetary systems), K's system has been regulated, controlled, similated, hyperstimulated and shut down completely.

The first ultrasound is amazeballs! I wasn't sure what I was expecting but nothing could prepare me for the power of seeing our baby (who is called Darwintoo and considered a girl for now) for the first time. And that heartbeat brought me to tears (and is again as I write this :)). Both K and I found ourselves uttering very obvious things like "there's a baby in there"! I wasn't even that eloquent but at least I didn't go into sci-fi because I was definitely thinking about Aliens.

Today is our first ultrasound. If all goes well we should find out if we have one, two, three, four (or more!) babies on the go!

We debated whether or not to put in two embryos. I was concerned for K's health (she has injured her back in the past) any the babies' health and, between you and me, am a little scared of two babies (let alone two babies all at once!). We went with two to increase our odds of getting pregnant, especially given the journey (emotional and physical) that this has been. Note: a recent study suggests that our logic on that isn't entirely sound.

I haven't purchased a Slurpee in about 15 years! Two days ago I got a series of texts requesting one. "I really want one! :)"

So, I found myself in Mac's (which actually calls them Frosters) contemplating whether a bucket-sized container of ice and syrup would be enough. We shall see how long this craving lasts.

They say that pregnant women experience vivid dreams. This seems to be a function of funky hormones as well as better dream recall due to frequent waking (if the baby moves or the bladder calls).