Baby Time

For those of you who haven't heard, we're having a little boy!!! To announce it this time around we included a picture of Jen holding some Scrabble letters in our Christmas card.

This one didn't make the cut, but it was an interesting attempt

This time around we were almost able to keep it a secret for the entire 20 weeks! As you know with Bryn we tried to, but didn't quite make it. We cracked around week 16 and dropped off a package at UPS shortly before we got a call that Grandma Whittier had passed away. We recovered our package, booked some tickets home for the funeral, and broke the news to the Burk side after the funeral was over. It was a bright spot in an otherwise miserable weekend. The Pehrson's found out the next week when Steph flew out for a conference, which coincidentally was announced with a separate celebration marking the end of the Great Chocolate Fast. Brownies were served.

As you may have noticed I did say "almost" able to keep it a secret until we found out what we were having. A kidney stone broke the news for us a few weeks earlier. Jen began having sharp pains in her side and was vomiting from the pain. She tried to fight it for nearly a week before making a doctor's appointment. The doctor sent her directly to the ER where they took an ultrasound of her kidneys and found the "little" bugger. She had actually passed the stone from her kidney and into the bladder, but it wasn't going any further!! The doctor determined that the stone was too big to pass and suggested sticking a laser in "there" and zapping it. After about a week she was good as new. However, while most of our family simply accepted that using a laser was the preferred method of removing a kidney stone, our two brothers in medical school caught on quickly. After swearing them to secrecy we were able to surprise the rest of the clan by sending out the Christmas cards.

BTW: We're due April 28th and are going to name him Hudson. Still working on a middle name though...