It's a girl!

It seems our life is full of countdowns recently, and one of the ones I've been the most impatient and excited about recently finally ended on Monday! Almost as soon as we learned we were having a baby, I, like every expectant mom I'm sure, have been desperate to know if we were going to have a little prince or a little princess!! At 10 weeks I begged Steve to go along with the gender predictor test at Walgreens, but he laughed and insisted there was absolutely nothing in my urine that could tell us what we were having. He suggested we flip a coin as those odds would be the same. Sometimes it's annoying to be married to a doctor. At 15 weeks I tried to beg and bargain our way to 4D Peek. Again, he insisted that the chances of an accurate answer were as good as flipping the coin at that point. After lots of research online about the best time to see the baby, he did finally agree that we could go for a peek at 17 weeks. Of course his timing was, as always, impeccable because we left for Turks & Caicos two days shy of 17 weeks, we returned right at 18 weeks and our US at the doctor's office was scheduled for 19 weeks, so there was really no point in having a peek less than a week in advance!! All through last week, I'd think to myself "Only 5 more days" or "Only 2 more days" and started feeling quite proud that I, the one who loves surprises but hates suspense, who can't wait to find out what happens at the end of a movie, so I look up the ending on my Iphone in the theater and who still loves Christmas so much I can't sleep the night before, had actually been patient and actually waited the full 19 weeks until our appointment!! That is, until Steve was on OB call at the hospital all day Sunday, and called to see if I wanted to come in and play with an ultrasound machine...at least I made it 18 weeks and 6 days!! So, armed with lunch for Steve & Kimmie, who was also working, as my "excuse", off to the hospital I went, thrilled to get to find out what we were having a whole day early! The whole time we were having lunch together, I was wishing everybody could eat just a little faster, get the small talk over with, and get down to business, I was finished being patient!! So, finally, Steve, Kimmie & I headed over to OB and the next thing I knew, there was our little baby right on the screen!! We watched in amazement as little legs kicked, fingers waved and a tiny little arm punched upwards, swatting at US wand it seemed!! We saw all 4 chambers of the tiny little heart, the perfect little spine, even a little tongue being stuck out at us and what I swear is Kimmie's nose! We did not, however, get to see what we were all there for, of course my baby would be just as stubborn as mom and refuse to give up the money shot a day early!!! Although we left with a pretty good idea, we still didn't know for sure! So back to waiting 19 full weeks and counting down the hours until Monday morning!!

From the very moment we knew we were having a baby, "girl" is the only thing that had been on my mind! Not necessarily because I wouldn't love to have baby boy, but just because that's all that was up there! Steve & I had been able to agree on a name for a baby girl, on nursery furniture, even on paint for the nursery, all for a baby girl! We didn't agree on anything, at all, for a baby boy! So, naturally, we both assumed that's what we'd have, just so God could get a bit of entertainment out of us arguing and bargaining with each other for the next 5 months! I didn't sleep at all on Sunday night and was even up before my 6:15 alarm on Monday morning, ready to know the answer to our question and the next thing I knew, I, with Steve & Mom, was looking at our tiny baby on the screen again! Of course the US tech did a full top to toe inspection of our little miracle before getting to the juicy stuff, but finally, after all this waiting, she informed us we are going to the be parents of an absolutely perfect, beautifully spoiled little princess!! Ah, the countdown is finally over...and so begins the shopping! We have pretty much already chosen her crib, her linens, her walls and her name, or at least, her first name. Discussion on the middle name could get interesting...but as I said, this is one countdown that is over, and the next one we're counting down to is Kimmie's wedding, 30 days from today! Just when Steve thought he was so close to having the only wedding he'd have to pay for over with...it all begins again! And we couldn't be happier!

Our Anniversary

So everybody who knows us knows we LOVE our traveling!! Last August, we went with Kimmie & Clay to The Regent Grand on Grace Bay in the Turks & Caicos Islands, and we loved it so much that I actually filled out a very long survey they emailed to us after our vacation. As a "thank you" for filling it out, they entered us into their yearly drawing for a 4-night return stay to either of their properties. To our surprise and delight, we actually won!! So, last week, off to Turks & Caicos we went!!

We like to go different places and see new things, so we decided we'd spend 4 nights at Parrot Cay and then go for our 4 free nights to Villa Renaissance on Provo. We had fun at both places, as we always do together, but Parrot Cay wasn't really up to all the hype and it made us really excited to get to Provo and Grace Bay!! It didn't help that it rained while we were at PC, but, on a fun note, we did see Keith Richards there at dinner all dressed in his headband, fedora and a trenchcoat because that is clearly what you wear in the Caribbean to go unnoticed...


On Tuesday we left the rain of Parrot Cay behind for our boat ride back to the sunshine and blue water of Grace Bay and our free stay! I can't say enough about how fabulous that free stay was! We had a 2 BR ocean front condo right on the ground floor, so we could walk out our patio and straight to the beach! Every morning they brought us a little basket with bottled water, fruit, pastries, yogurt and juice for our breakfast on the patio, which I just loved!! Along the whole beach side of the condo were sliding glass doors with an electric drop down screen so we could open the whole wall and listen to the waves! I'm not sure how many other guests were there, but it felt like we were the only ones! We spent lots of time laying on the beach, reading, racing at sudoku (which I ALWAYS win), played football in the water and took lots of belly pics!
Afterall, when else can a girl wear a bikini and not have to worry about her belly sticking out!

Thursday was our 4 year anniversary, which is the "fruit or plant" anniversary and how I convinced Steve to take me to TCI for my present as it's full of tropical fruit & plants!! During our patio breakfast that morning, he also surprised me with a palm tree charm from my favorite little blue box to go on my charm bracelet! He got the big surprise that morning, though, when he found an envelope in his fruit basket describing the new guitar that was waiting at home for him! I know it isn't fruit or plant, but it was in a fruit basket, so that works! We had a great time just being lazy together last week, but it's always nice to come back home, too! And now we get to look forward to finding out if our little bundle is a boy or a girl next Monday!!! 

We'll be sure to let you know!

Where to Begin...

I'm not really the "bloggy" type & not sure where to begin, so I guess I'll just catch up the last few years and start at, well, the beginning!

A little more than 5 years ago, Steve & I met at around 3 AM over a central line in the ICU (ah, the romance!) It took a few months for us to start dating, but once we did, we never slowed down and on a birthday trip to Italy he proposed during a gondola ride in Venice! Next week we will be celebrating our 4th wedding anniversary!!

During the last few years, we've had a great time enjoying our families, our puppy dogs Maggie & Macy and generally just being together! We have a mutual love, or perhaps obsession, with travel and if you ask what we've done the last few years, the best answer I have is that we've just travelled!!! Together we have visited some of the most incredible places I'd ever imagined!

Before we were married, we visited Nevis, Hawaii, the Caribbean on a cruise with my family and went to England for me to meet Steve's family.  For our honeymoon, we relaxed in Aitutaki, swam with sharks in Bora Bora and shopped along Rodeo Drive!

Steve introduced ME (the most non-athletic girl ever) to snow skiing, which I quickly fell in love with, followed by my mom & dad!

We've sailed through the BVI on a romantic catamaran with just the two of us, then again with Steve's daughter, Kimmie, & her soon to be husband, Clay. We have spent time in Anguilla, Virgin Gorda, Peter Island, Turks & Caicos, Canouan Island, Puerto Morelos, St Lucia and our favorite beach spot, Barbuda.

For years, Steve's mum vacationed in a little lake town in Italy called Malcesine most summers, and we've been lucky enough to meet her there a couple of times. Steve is originally from near London, so we like to go to England when we can to visit his mum, sister and brother, all still there. It's also a handy spot to start (or finish) trips to other parts of Europe, so I've become obsessed with Paris and all things Parisian, been to Prague for the Christmas markets and have fallen in love with an entire country during time in Italy! We were even able to convince my parents and grandparents to come with us in the summer of 2008 for about 2 weeks traveling through Italy, visiting Paris and ending up in London with the Sperrings!  No matter where we are, we've always had fun together, even though we were once dropped off at an "airport hotel" in Barbados around midnight because our flight to the Grenadines was cancelled, spent last Valentine's Day at another "airport hotel" in Antigua for another cancelled flight, between the two of us, have lost our luggage 6 times (or maybe more), gotten food poisoning in Vail, and last but not least, while shopping for a rain coat and umbrella in the pouring rain in Dublin (lost luggage) Steve slipped and broke his elbow on the first of 10 days in Europe!! And being the good nurse that I am, I spent the whole week telling him he was fine and it was just a bruise...but that's not important now, practically ancient history!!

Soooo, that basically covers the last 5 years, which have been quite an adventure for us! Of course during this time, we've only been asked about a thousand times when we were going to stop traveling and have a baby (only about 990 of those were my mom). Our answer was always that we had one more city to explore or one more beach to lay on, etc etc. Actually, though, we weren't really traveling instead of having a baby, but rather because we didn't have one. We both knew from before we ever said "I do" that for us, a family together was a must. Steve already has 3 children, but we both wanted our own family together, which, not to give TMI, required my sweet, wonderful, incredible husband to go back under the knife for a vasectomy reversal shortly after our wedding, 4 years ago. During this time that has passed, along with the traveling, we've taken ovulation tests, false pregnancy tests, consulted with a fertility specialist and finally, in the fall of last year, began the necessary steps to do IVF, which isn't really a secret to those who know us well, as our doctor told us "I'm not saying it's impossible to have a baby without it, but it is a one in a million chance." We had everything lined up and prepared to actually begin the treatments in January, and hopefully be expecting a few months later, honestly so that I could get in one more ski trip and also not be miserably huge for Kimmie's wedding in May (that's the biggest day of her life, which we wanted nothing to interfere with!)! So, that was our plan. The week before our ski trip was planned in January, in true Sperring fashion, I came down with something, was sure it was the flu, and spent the whole week feeling absolutely awful with body aches, low grade fever, stomach cramps and nausea. The day before the trip, I had no choice but to run a few last minute errands picking up things that we needed, and that's when I realized that something was a bit "off"! So, along with my always & tampax I assumed I'd be needing any minute, I picked up a little box of those magical sticks that you pee on and your whole world either changes or it doesn't (and of course went through the "self checkout" lane, didn't want to be the crazy chic buying tampons and a pregnancy test together). When I got back home again, Steve was already off work and was busy packing away, so I told him my thoughts, which worried him that my hopes were up, but we both figured if I were going to spend the next week throwing myself down the side of Vail mountain, it couldn't hurt just to check...and surprise, surprise, this time that little stick actually did change our world and today, as I write this, I'm 16 weeks along and couldn't possibly be happier!

Some may wonder why do I chose to tell all of this, but, it's because it's our story and you can't imagine how wonderfully excited we are about the next chapters without knowing the previous ones, too. And even though we've had to wait longer than we thought we would, and basically nothing has gone according to our "plan", I wouldn't change one day of our last five years together, they have been truly fabulous! So, as I said before, this is the beginning of our story that's been filled with love, happiness, fun, and what we thought was adventure, but I have a feeling the real adventure will begin in about 24 more weeks!!