Third prenatal visit and dropping the bomb at school

It's a small world after all. A nurse at my Dr.'s office is also a mom of a student in my class. She is a wonderful nurse and very professional. It was because of something she told me during my third visit that prompted me to finally tell my students about my pregnancy...

11/18/09
We had our third prenatal visit today. We knew that we would not be doing an ultrsound today since that will not be until about 20 weeks. I was hoping we’d get to hear the heartbeat though. Luckily, James had vacation this week so he was able to come again. We started off just like normal, my favorite nurse/student’s mom measured my weight (I’m up to 109!) and took my temperature while asking me if i had told my students yet. I had told her I wanted to wait a bit longer. She told me her daughter, had said to her the other day, it looks like Mrs. Stoner is getting a little belly! Ahhhhhh! My kids are noticing that I’m getting fat! I think that may have sent my heart rate sky high! After Holly took my blood pressure, she said it was a bit high. Whoops! Hopefully it was just due to the news Holly shared and not anything else. The Dr. didn’t seem too concerned. Then came the moment of truth. The Dr. squirted a blob of jelly on my belly and stuck the wand on there. I had thought I heard the heartbeat right away but then the Dr. started moving the wand around a lot. After a few seconds, she said that IS the heartbeat, but she was just trying to get a better sound for us. A few seconds later we heard a very strong heartbeat. I was so happy to hear it, I actually started laughing! It sounded like a herd of wild horses galloping in my belly!! James was there to hear it too, which I am thankful for. Looking over and seeing him while we heard our baby’s heartbeat was priceless. I’m glad he came. We also now have a date for our formal ultrasound. Wednesday, December 23rd at 11:00. Be ready to receive a very exciting text message that day :) What a fun Christmas gift! We get a sneak peek at our little peanut and we may even get to learn the gender! I’m so excited! :)

Well, after we heard the heartbeat, I felt even better about the way the pregnancy was progressing. So my friend Ami asked me if it was finally time to write it on the whiteboard in the workroom at school. I felt like I had kept it a secret for as long as necessary and a lot of people had heard through the grapevine so I told Ami to go ahead and drop the bomb at school. People were all so happy for me :) Now came the more difficult task of telling my students. Since my nurse had already told me that her daughter was noticing, I figured it was time for them to know. I'd MUCH rather have them know I'm pregnant than think I'm getting fat!! So at the end of the day, I hooked up my laptop to my projector to show the kids some pictures. I first showed them the pictures of the nursery and then the picture of the ultrasound. Most of them figured it out at that point. There were some very excited girls, which I figured on and most of the boys were like, whatever. Then I had the kids vote on whether they thought I’d have a boy or a girl and what I should name the baby. There were some very interesting names, my favorite... Michael Jackson Stoner. Jeez! I also had them give me some advice on being a mom. Most things were mundane, like feed the baby and stuff like that. But one was very sweet. It said something like, love the baby like it is the most important thing in the world to you. Awww :) Now EVERYONE at school knew. That day I went home and let the secret out to the rest of the world. I posted it on Facebook and Myspace. More very positive, happy responses from all my friends :) Now it’s out there... Hopefully I’l never have to keep this big of secret for such a long time ever again! It was so hard!