2009 Wrap Up

So I thought I'd take a moment to look back on the interesting...and maybe some uninteresting...things that happened in our life in 2009. Here goes:

• After what seemed like an eternity, Clint got his BA degree from the University of Utah

• We remodeled the master bathroom

• Clint ran a half marathon for the first time




• We found out we were FINALLY having a baby




• We went on a fun, relaxing trip to San Diego, CA






• Clint had LASIK eye surgery done. Say goodbye to glasses and contacts!
• We planted a tree in our front yard! (I have been wanting to put something in that huge open space for so long and finally got around to convincing Clint to plant it. It will probably be big enough by the time we decide to move out of the house!)

I realized Clint did A LOT of things this year and while I was there supporting him, I didn't really accomplish a whole lot. So 2010 is MY year to make some things happen!

We are having a girl!

No, we aren't having a girl. That title was to get all the women that read this blog (2 I think) that happy little feeling that all women get when they think of little baby dolls, err girls.

Emily and I went to the doctor last week to find out what gender the baby was. After a 35 minute wait in the room, Emily pulled up her shirt and got "gelled" up (In case you haven't caught on, I like to make things sound more extreme or edgy than they really are). The Dr started moving the Ultra Sound Wand thingy around and both Emily and I thought we saw a weenier. To be fair though, we could have been looking at the ultrasound of a Big Mac and it would probably look the same to me.

Finally, the Dr stopped looking at the lining or whatever he was looking at and he went on the ball(s) hunt. It only took a second before he declared that we could keep the baby because it would be a boy. We both got really excited and hugged each other....we couldn't really believe it was real. I honestly would have been thrilled regardless of the gender, but I always teased Emily that if it was a girl that I would just let the baby stay inside her for a bit until it grew his bits and bops.

After a few seconds of joy, I started to remember the horror stories I have heard about Dr's mis-identifying the gender. Somewhat tentatively I asked the Dr how sure he was about the gender. The look he gave me strangely resembled the look Emily gives me whenever she walks into a room and catches me doing a strange Egyptian version of the Robot or some other strange dance. He told me that he was sure.

So, there it is. We are having a boy! The next logical question people ask us is always "Have you thought of names?" Yup

Ishmael Jamal Cunningham has a nice ring to it doesn't it?

It's About Time!

So some exciting things have been happening at the Cunningham house. As some of you may know (and others who may not) Clint and I have not been able to have children the "good ol' fashioned way." We have explored a few things and seriously considered adoption but we left the adoption agency feeling very discouraged for the following reasons:

1. It was going to cost AT LEAST $22,000
2. You have to wait to be picked...some wait more than a year!
3. There is a 20% chance the mother will change her mind once the baby is born
4. You have to prepare a scrapbook of sorts so mothers can view your profile and I do not have the talent (like my friend Carson) to produce gorgeous scrapbook pages that would get Clint and I noticed!

We were still seriously debating the adoption idea when last Christmas, a coworker of mine told me that, through artificial insemination, his son and daughter-in-law were having triplets. So I started researching the process and Clint and I met with a doctor in March to see if we could get pregnant through artificial insemination as well.

It took two months of tests, blood draws, ultrasounds etc. but they determined that with the right medications and artificial triggers we had a really good chance!

So we tried in May and it failed. We tried in July and it failed again. But as they say, "three times is the charm" because our third attempt in September took and we found out in early October that I was pregnant. When I took the test and it came back positive I almost didn't believe it. I took it downstairs to Clint's office and just set it on his desk and he looked at it, sprang out of his chair, hugged me so hard, and we both just started crying!

I am currently 13 1/2 weeks pregnant and while I find it sort of weird to be displaying pictures of my uterus for anyone to see, I thought it was pretty cool to see our baby developing from a little blob to an actual human form in such a short amount of time:


This first picture was our second ultrasound taken on 11.4.2009. This was the first time we got to see the flicker of a heart beat.



This is a picture of the 3rd ultrasound taken on 11.16.09. I was feeling really anxious and every little pang in my abdomen was freaking me out so my doctor told me to come in to see the baby again just to put my mind at ease. Poor guy. He is very patient with me.

Again, I was worried last week and my appointment with my doctor wasn't for another week and a half so Clint took me to Fetal Foto and they did an ultrasound and took several awesome pictures for me. This one below is the profile shot they took. It's amazing that it is already looking so much more like a person here!

At Fetal Foto they also recorded an amazing DVD of our baby moving around, sucking its thumb, putting its hand up to its face, etc. And we got to hear its heartbeat for the first time too!

So there you have it folks! We are so excited and are crossing our fingers that by mid-June we will have a healthy baby to take home! Wonder how the dogs will do with this...

Tess is a weird dog!

Since Clint works from home, the dogs will spend most of the day down in his office with him. Just about every day I will get a text message from Clint with a new interesting picture of Tess sleeping or doing something really weird. Thought I would share a few here...I laugh out loud every time I look at these!

For some reason Tess really likes to have her face and nose covered while sleeping:


This pictures is just plain weird!


I promise Clint did NOT put her in the sleeve of his hoodie...this time. He came downstairs and she had gotten stuck on her own!


This is cyclops Tess...


Tess has now learned how to hop up on the bar stool in the kitchen. That dog has springs in her back legs, I swear!