"Baby One More Time"

Almost two years ago, we published It's a... blog!'s first post. The purpose of the blog was to keep our many out of town family and friends abreast of pregnancy developments and the like. While this blog fulfilled that purpose, within a month of that first post it had grown into something else altogether. As Allison's pregnancy went in an unexpected direction, the blog necessarily followed. Ayden's story has undoubtedly expanded the blog's reach.To date, over 8,000 unique internet users have visited the blog over 60,000 times and have produced almost 100,000 page views. (These numbers would be higher, but I didn't insert the tracking code until after the first five months.) It's read by people who would not come here but for Ayden's congenital heart defect. No longer do we just reach family and friends.

Our lives over the last two years have been laid bare on these pages and made available to the world (well, the world of those with internet access, anyways). I would've never imagined complete strangers - people whom I will never talk to or meet - would know so much about me, about my family. Even so, I wouldn't trade it. There were many times when posting to the blog was a very real form of therapy for me. It allowed me to gather my thoughts and feelings and then release them in an uninhibited, uninterrupted way. Keeping things bottled up inside would've been very dangerous and unhealthy.

At this point, you are probably wondering what any of that has to do with this post's title. I'll explain. As I said, we got this thing started two years so family and friends could know what was going on with Allison and (the unborn child eventually named) Ayden. That purpose hasn't changed since then. Until now. I'll let Ayden explain, after the break.

That's right. Ayden has a sibling on the way, which is to say Allison is pregnant. The 20 week ultrasound was about a week and a half ago. I'll get into more details (and more pictures) in a subsequent post, but here's the important info at this stage:

• Due date is March 19th;
• The baby is a boy;
• We have no clue what we are going to name him; and
• Confirmed by both an ultrasound at the OB and a fetal ECHO at Vandy . . .

HIS HEART HAS FOUR CHAMBERS!