Superman or My Little Pony?

So now that we've revealed that we're having a kid, we now go into a waiting mode where we anxiously await the next ultrasound so that we can know the gender of our baby.  Over the next few months, Barbara and I go through names for either gender and I swear we went through a million variations.

The main criteria:
1.  Is it a name that our parents can pronounce?  Immigrant Koreans have a hard time with certain names - mainly anything with a lot of "L's" - For instance, one name that Barbara liked was Liam, but it got nixed because Koreans tend to turn L's into R's and it would've sounded like "Ree-am."

2.  The name could not be associated with someone that has annoyed/wronged Barbara in her life.  What I came to find out is that Barbara didn't necessarily have a lot of enemies, but just a lot of people that she flat out didn't like.

Our top choices ended up being Connor for a boy and we didn't necessarily come up with a top girl name, but we'd probably choose some variation of Eva, Ava, or if Barbara twisted my arm enough, Olive or Olivia.  I don't think there was any specific significance to any of the names other then we liked it and it met the criteria above.

So as we go into the ultra sound, we're now safely past the 1st trimester and Barbara is starting to a show a little bit.  You can see this little baby bump and it was amazing to see that growth.  We were warned beforehand that the technician, Kevin, was a little bit of a kook and he turned out to be exactly as described.  He was this lively Japanese fellow who made a lot of corny jokes, but he meant well and we actually enjoyed his humor.  As he's progressing through the various parts, we can now see the body of our baby (not just a little tadpole/egg) and you can see the head.  We both tear up a bit because it's so amazing to see what we had created and how it's grown in a few short months.  Kevin then says "I know what you're having....do you wanna know?  20 bucks!" jokingly.  After a while we progresses through and shows a picture that he describes as the bottom of the kid.  In so many words, he says there's his butt and what do you think that is...which essentially was the penis and that we were having a boy!

We would've been excited no matter the outcome, but we both knew our families would be rather proud/happy that we were having a boy.  In traditional Asian cultures, men are seen as the ones that can carry the blood line, provide for the family, etc.  In my family that is definitely more important, where as Barbara's family was a little more split.  Some were more traditional and wanted a boy, but she had some that were hoping for a girl.  They have a little more of a soft spot for them over there.

So we had a reveal party for our friends and it was graciously hosted by your Auntie Kim and Uncle Zach.  Barbara ended up stuffing a piñata with mints that were wrapped in blue and pink and then added some random candy in between.  The idea was to have the girls count how many blues (boy) and pink (girl) and whatever had the most would end up being the reveal of gender.  The game turned out so differently....Nhu-y ended up breaking open the piñata and the candy flew.  The girls immediately looked at the candy and were perplexed.  We had to explain that there was some math involved, but it was also funny because Nhu-y was confused on what the random candy meant.  She brought us some smarties/double bubbles and asked "what does this mean?"  After it was all said and done, they figured out it was a boy and they were all excited for us.  We ended up watching the DVD of the ultrasound afterwards and just talking about the possibilities of what it'll be like to have our little boy to join the group of friends.

So this is a little awkward...

Connor, if you're reading this, you'll probably notice that I'm writing a lot about your history, but by this time you've already been born!  The main explanation really is that I didn't get completely inspired to do this until way after the fact and it's taken me some time to catch up and I'll explain in later blogs but long story short is that you didn't give me much time to sleep so when I had free time, that's all I did.

Anyway, as the story continues....so we've now fully confirmed that Connor exists and now the long wait of the first trimester.  As I mentioned previously, we were cautious in telling anyone that we were pregnant - it took us so long to get here, we just didn't want to jinx it until we knew the chances were slim that there would be complications with the pregnancy (i.e. after the 1st trimester).

Honestly, the first trimester was pretty uneventful other than the fact that we were going to have a kid.  But more along the lines of symptoms...Barbara didn't really have any cravings, didn't have any morning sickness, and just went about her business.  There wasn't a whole lot going event wise between our friends, so we really didn't have to do anything to hide the fact that we were pregnant.

The first people we told were Connor's Auntie Michelle and his Uncle Brendan.  These were our best friends and wanted to share the good news.

So I'll start with Brendan because the ironic part was right before I went to China, I shared a story with him about our struggles to get pregnant and just how hard a time we were having emotionally at that point in time.  This was a story that no one really knew as we kept it pretty private - both from a pride and also an embarrassment stand point.  Little did I know as I was having that conversation with him, Connor was already starting to make a home in Barbara's stomach.  When I told him that we were pregnant, he was obviously overjoyed and happy for us!

With Michelle, Bob had a little ploy to get her over by asking her to "pick up" some stuff from the house.  When she came in, they obviously got to talking and Bob showed her the 1st ultra sound picture of Connor and provided no explanation.  Michelle then said "What's this?" and kind of had that "No way!" look on her face before tearing up which then proceeded to both Barbara and I shedding the water works as well.  Michelle was another of the select few that understood our struggles and knew how hard of a time we were having.

After those two, we then proceeded to tell our immediate families.  Bob's mom cried and her dad cracked a smile (which isn't always easy to do) while my dad got super excited for 30 secs then proceeded to continue building a shelf for my sister.  I called my mom while she was in Korea and she had a similar reaction of "that's great...but let me get back to business..."  One thing to know is that Connor's grandpa (my dad) is a little bit of a blabber mouth.  I had told him that he couldn't tell anyone we were pregnant until after our 1st trimester and he said he understood.  The next week he goes to Korea and returns with a bunch of baby gifts from various relatives.  I got mad at my dad and all he could say is "Why be mad?  This is great news and we should share it!"  Argh!

Anyway, our big reveal was after a celebration for Barbara's birthday.  We ended up getting a big group of people out to watch Star Trek: Into Darkness and after the movie I ask every one to get together for a group picture.  Once they line up, I shout out "Ready?  On three!  1, 2, Barbara's pregnant!"  And the reaction is kind of funny because there are a lot of weird looks of "Wait did he say that?  No..."  Once a I repeated, there were a lot of hugs, some tears, and just a lot of love.

Next post will be about how we found out your gender and how it got revealed...

Happy Thanksgiving!

A few weeks after the confirmed news, we had to make a decision…where will our kid be born and what doctor would we go with?

We ended up going with Dr. Pollard and delivering at the El Camino Hospital in Los Gatos because both Nhu-y and Michelle had delivered their kids there and also Barbara had heard a lot of horror stories when it came to delivering kids at Kaiser.  Once we made the decision, we set up an appointment and a few weeks later we had our first ultrasound.

Admittedly we were both pretty nervous mainly because we weren't sure what to expect.  Right off the bat, we realized Dr. Pollard was pretty kooky - lots of energy, not really a calming presence, but you did get a feeling she knew what she was doing.  Once she got Barbara hooked up the machine, one of the most amazing visuals came up on the screen.  We saw this little oval, no bigger then a bean show up on the screen.  You then saw these flashes go on and off which signified the heart beat.  Both of us held hands and teared up at this little miracle.  We also found out that the initial due date was going to be around late November - Thanksgiving baby.  Dr. Pollard told us that things looked good and that we'd get another appointment after the 1st trimester.  We left relieved and excited about what was to come next.

1st month ultrasound - 04/12/2013

The hardest part was not being able to tell anyone about this joyous occasion.  This is some of the best news we've ever had, but we were very superstitious about needing to get past the 1st trimester before telling anyone.  The ironic part was shortly after our first ultrasound, our friends Josh and Jenny had just announced that they were pregnant and they then asked us when we were next and we just had to coyly say "Who knows, maybe we'll try this year."  Lucky for us, Barbara didn't really have any pregnancy symptoms which made it even easier for us to hold our secret.

Obviously if you look at the time stamps, this blog is being created after the fact of some of these events and the ironic part is that we thought Connor would be here by now and celebrating his first Thanksgiving with us and our families.  Every year we can always say that we're thankful for being healthy, happy, have jobs, have families, but I think this year is different.  This year both of us are extremely thankful that we're going to be expanding our family and that we'll provide all the love and support that we can give to our little guy.

Welcome to the beginning….

As mentioned by the title, this blog is the life and times of Connor Jae Yong Lee.   This is mainly inspired by that Google commercial where that dad creates a video blog for his daughter and chronicles her life and I really thought that this would be a cool way to connect with my son.  Hopefully my wife and I will be diligent about keeping this thing up to date!

Admittedly this blog will be longer then most as I'd like to provide an origin story for Connor.  So let's rewind a bit before we start talking about the journey that led to this blog…..

How I Met Your Mother:
It was around 2006-2007 when Barbara (Bob) and I first met.  We met though a mutual friend, Shannon - Bob went to high school with her and I met her through friends.  It was funny because Shan had originally told me that I was not her type and that it wouldn't work.  Shan introduced me to her anyway along with her high school friends and that's where our two worlds started to integrate.  Through out the year we all hung out, partied, BBQ'd, played sports, etc.

Barbara's Birthday - Agenda, Downtown San Jose (05-09-2007)

As it turned out, Bob and I had tremendous chemistry and on March 17, 2007, we officially started dating.  After about 1+ years, I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her and I ended up proposing to her in July 2008 and we were married on October, 24, 2009 at Ruby Hills Golf Course in Pleasanton.  This was originally the best day of my life….

Ruby Hills Golf Course - Barbara and Bryant's Wedding (10-24-09)

Kids?  We're not ready….
So fast forward a few years…Barbara and I had always talked about starting a family, but we wanted to   enjoy the marriage phase of our life for a few years and then start thinking about kids.  Little did we know a "few years" = 4 and some change.  Over the years we enjoyed spending time together watching movies, figuring out what our favorite shows would be, traveling, and just enjoying not having major responsibilities such as having a kid.  The main joy here is really having the freedom to go out when we wanted to, stay out late, travel on a whim, etc.

We originally started to try and have a kid around January/February of 2012.  We had read books and read articles online on how to get pregnant and we thought that it would be a piece of cake.  Little did we know that creating life in this world would actually be hard work and was more then we bargained for.  Go forward to about September 2012 and imagine two individuals who had wanted something so badly, but had months and months of heartbreak and frustration.  We didn't realize how much of an evil monster Facebook was until we had to endure this type of pain.  Mainly Facebook is used by many to show off their many accomplishments in life and we were at that age where all couples around us were posting announcements & pictures of their future/current kids on a daily basis.  Even though we wanted to share in others joy, it felt like a consistent slap in the face and reinforced the fact that we were failures.  We were so embarrassed that we never told anyone that we were even trying and had to lie about the fact that we didn't really want a baby.  To be fair, we have AWESOME friends & family that have provided us great support - but this was something that Bob and I felt like we had to endure on our own.  We finally sought out help at a infertility clinic where the doctors would check us out to figure out the cause.  Though after months and months of tests and poor Barbara having to take daily pills and even poke herself with needles, we started losing hope.

On March 24, 2013 - I had just returned from a business trip to China and Bob had decided to take a blood test that day to see if she happened to be pregnant.  We both didn't have high hopes, but it ended up being a "what do we have to lose" type of moment.  As we were running errands, Barbara decided to check her e-mail and saw that she had already received her results.  I distinctly remember that we were waiting at the light of San Tomas Expressway and Homestead where she said "No way!" in pure disbelief.  She checked her phone again and again and said again "No way!" where this finally got my attention and she showed me her results.  I don't remember the technical term, but there was a field that said "Pregnancy = Positive" - we both cried on the spot and I gave her the best hug I could while at a green light (not advisable btw).  This day was one that I'd never forget as this was the first day I could say "We're going to be parents" and this will end up being in my top 5 memorable moments of our lives.

Admittedly, we were a little skeptical because there was another blood test needed that week to confirm.  So we tried not to have our hopes high, but it was difficult not to be overjoyed and hopeful.  The worst part about that week is that I had to fly to Tucson the next day on a business trip and I wouldn't have been back until that Friday.

Barbara took that blood test that Wednesday and received the results.  She texted/called me that night and confirmed it - we were having a baby!  Once again we cried and let ourselves get excited for the first time in months.  We talked about what if it's a boy?  How about a girl?  What would we name him/her?  What traits do you have him/her to have?  It was an amazing day and the only bad part is that we had to celebrate remotely.  We did approach things cautiously from there mainly because the first 3 months are really critical and usually had the highest risk of a miscarriage.  Given what we went through, we tried to calm our fears until we got through those 3 months.

As this story continues, we'll show the first pictures of Connor and show a progression of Barbara through out the months…..