Our Greatest Adventure: Summer 2020
Fel and Wes are having a baby! I’m smiling as I type this because this is by far the most exciting news we’ve ever shared on the blog :D
We’re due June 8th which happens to be right smack in the middle of our 32nd birthdays. To say we’ll have a lot to celebrate this year is an understatement!
If you’re doing the math in your head, that means we’re about 5 months pregnant and nearly through the second trimester. Some people asked why we chose to keep the news a secret for so long but it wasn’t intentional at all. The honest and simple truth is, we’ve been busy. Settling into a new city, learning a new language, starting a new business, keeping up with doctor’s appointments and all that jazz.
Now that the news is out in the open, allow me to walk you through these last few months.
October 1st, 2019
I remember the morning like it was yesterday. Wes and I were staying in a tiny Airbnb in Budapest’s 7th district. He went to pick up a pregnancy test at a pharmacy nearby despite my insistence that I was just late because of my irregular cycle. But Wes was convinced something was different. Ask him and he’ll tell you he knew right away because I was more hungry than usual :P
I reluctantly took the test and our lives would never be the same…
That very night, we were scheduled to meet our friends for happy hour at a place along the Danube. Still in shock and unable to visit a doctor right away, we had to think quickly and come up with a reason for why I wouldn’t be drinking.
“Guys, I’m doing Sober October”, I admitted while everyone ordered the first round of beers. It wasn’t easy to skip out on the alcohol but it was the perfect excuse to get us through the first month. As we packed up in Budapest and prepped for our travels home, the excuse also bought us time while we waited for blood work results to confirm the pregnancy.
The whole no alcohol thing was definitely a challenge at first but it’s gotten a bit easier now that I’ve made it to sober February. Truth be told, I’m really looking forward to my first glass (or bottle?) of merlot.
The First Ultrasound
We had our first ultrasound at the end of October and, let me tell you, it was nothing like in the movies. There was no bright, spacious room with a friendly doctor walking us through every little detail. In fact, when I was first called into the room, the technician was firm about Wes not joining us until she was done with her examination. So I walked into the room by myself and sat down while she spread cold gel over my stomach.
“It’s like an ocean in here!” I remember her saying as she looked at her monitor. Turns out, I drank too much water (despite following the 1L suggestion). She asked me to go empty out some of my bladder to make it easier for her to do the scan. How in the heck are you supposed to know when to stop peeing if someone asks you to empty half your bladder?
Wes was able to join me in the end and she let us see her screen. At this point, our baby was only 7.5 weeks old and looked more like a blob than anything else. But our little blob had a heartbeat and we were all the more excited :)
Sharing the News
Most of November was spent moving into our apartment and adjusting to life in Montreal. Aside from our immediate families, we decided to wait until the 12 week mark to share the news with others. We were due for our second ultrasound in December and this one was more exciting. Everything looked healthy and we could already make out the baby’s spine and limbs. Our little blob was starting to look more like a human and was now the size of a lemon!
We were both relieved to hear that everything was looking good and I felt more ready to share the news at this point. I’ve been fortunate to grow up in a really tight-knit community and there were several people who I wanted to share the news with in person. Maybe it’s my type A personality but I wanted to plan something special when telling loved ones. You only get to share the news of your firstborn once in your life and I couldn’t help but want to make it as memorable as possible.
I still wasn’t showing at all at this point but everything started to feel more real as we shared our news with more and more people. This baby is already so loved by so many and we’re fortunate to be surrounded by such a supportive, helpful and positive network of friends and family.
We’re having a…
BOY!
There are certain moments and emotions I wish I could bottle up forever and the day we found out our baby’s gender is one of those. We both definitely wanted to know the gender. For Wes, well, he’s impatient. For me, it really was a matter of strengthening the bond with our baby. It’s a whole lot easier to feel a connection with the person growing inside you when you know if that someone is a he or a she. At least that was the case for me.
It’s true what they say though… Boy or girl, we knew we’d be happy either way. Our 20 week ultrasound was a lot more memorable as we had it at a hospital here in Montreal and Wes was able to be in the room through the whole process. This technician was a lot more friendly and demonstrated all our baby’s body parts while she went through the anatomy scan.
The news actually came as even more of a surprise to us since the majority of people guessed we were having a girl. People claimed to know because of how I was carrying or the way my hips looked or because of how I was feeling. But the predictions were wrong and we may have a future hockey player in the family.
And now, for the frequently asked questions…
How has the pregnancy been?
I cannot stress enough how incredibly grateful I am to be feeling well. Not a day goes by that I take it for granted and I wish I could press a button and magically gift every woman a pregnancy as smooth as this one has been. I’ve had no nausea, no weird cravings, no extreme changes in behaviour. I’ve pretty much been able to go about my days as usual and feel so, so lucky.
As we neared the halfway mark, I started feeling movement and it took a while to realize it wasn’t just gas anymore. Our little guy is quite the active one, especially at night. Now there’s the occasional heartburn and a couple of moments when I cry for no apparent reason but, otherwise, I feel like myself. I’m starting to show and have officially made the switch to maternity jeans. It’s pretty exciting to actually look pregnant now.
Is this why we moved to Montreal?
Last summer was a pretty transformational one for us. We had plenty of long discussions about our future and felt it was time for us to look for a place to call home. This was also around the time we decided to start trying to conceive. We knew it could be 6 months to a year before we got pregnant but the stars aligned just right and, well, here we are.
Do you have a name?
We’ve been calling him ‘the little baby’. Now that we know the gender, we’re starting to brainstorm names. I’ve actually had a list on my phone with baby names for as long as I can remember (I can’t be the only one, right?!). This list has a Girl column three times as long as the Boy column. By now Wes has vetoed nearly every single one of those names so we’re open to suggestions! Ideally we’d like a name that can be easily pronounced in English, Spanish and French.
Any ideas?
Do we plan to travel with a baby?
We’re looking forward to taking our time with our first child and really giving ourselves space to settle into our roles as new parents. I love the idea of introducing our child to travel early in life but we have no plans to start hopping around the globe with a newborn. This will be our first summer in Montreal and we’re excited to uncover the city together as a family. The world will be there to explore when we’re ready.
What’s next?
For now, it’s pretty much business as usual. Our days are a mix of working from home, joining weekly language meetups to practice our French, shooting video for clients in Montreal and treating ourselves to the occasional comedy night. We’ll be going to prenatal classes next month and hopefully getting away for a mini babymoon weekend this spring.
I’d love to create a space here on Feather and the Wind for family updates every so often and look forward to sharing this new journey with you. There’s so much we have yet to learn about parenthood so expect to hear some honest insights as well as the highs and lows. As excited as we are to meet our baby boy, we’re taking things one thing at a time and really making the most of every moment together before we become a family of three.
As we start this next chapter, I can’t help but think back to all the ways my life could have gone. There was a time I thought I’d be married by 24. There was a version of me that thought I’d be a Director of Finance by 30. In another life I might have stayed abroad after my semester in Australia and continued travelling solo.
I think back to all the coincidences and seemingly unexplainable things that took place in order for Wes and I to meet nearly 7 years ago. If you told me then that I’d be living in Montreal with my suitcase collecting dust under the bed, I may not have believed you.
But there’s not a thing I would change about this past whirlwind of a decade. I’ve never been happier.
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