Well, it's been a week since we made the news public knowledge but in case you haven't heard: we're expecting a baby due December 9, 2013! We could not be more delighted! We've had to wait for this to happen for quite a bit longer than we'd expected but I truly believe that everything happens when it's meant to... even if that was a pretty frustrating concept to swallow for a while there.
They say you get a more reliable result if you take a pregnancy test first thing in the morning. I had been planning on taking one on a certain morning in early April but, on a whim, decided to take it the night before as well. I thought if I did it then and it was negative, as I'd expected it to be, that it would soften the blow the following morning. I'm not sure if that logic makes sense but it did to me at the time. When the test was done at first glance it appeared my usual negative sign-- one line. As I focused in more I noticed a very faint second line appearing. I'd never seen that before! I ran downstairs and showed it to Bryan who said, "What is that second line?!?!" We were afraid to get our hopes up so we decided to wait until the morning test to really be confident in it. The following morning, lo and behold, I really was pregnant. I'm not sure how many tests I took but I took a lot. I tried a few different brands, too, just to be sure. Included in those was the Clearblue test that simply said "Pregnant" on it. It was so amazing to see and I could scarcely convince myself to believe it could be true!
A day later it was my mom's birthday and we were headed down to Utah to spend Conference weekend at Bryan's mom's house. It was perfect timing! Since my family are all spread out and not close we called them all on the drive down and decided to wait and surprise Bryan's mom and sister in person. My family were all very excited, especially my mom! I'm her last daughter to have a baby-- I thought it was a pretty great birthday surprise. When we got to Utah Bryan's mom was still at work so we set up a banner across her kitchen ceiling that said, "Congrats, Grandma!" and we'd bought some noise makers from a party store. I was lucky enough to record her reaction to the banner (not seen in the video, as it was above our heads):
What a gratifying reaction. When we saw Shelley the next day we replaced the words with, "Congrats, Aunt Shelley!" She was very excited as well but didn't scream :).
Anyway, things have been going along smoothly. To be honest I've been a nervous wreck over how smoothly it has been going, worrying that my hCg levels aren't where they should be or that my baby stopped growing. I bet when the baby comes, healthy and whole, I'll find a new host of things to worry about. I've not really had morning sickness. I've thrown up a total of three times. Usually if I don't eat first thing when I get out of bed I start to feel gaggy and that's when it happens. Other than that I've had a stuffed nose and a blossoming of pimples around my mouth. Nicely descriptive, eh? Both are, apparently, pregnancy symptoms. I've also been having a lot of tailbone pain whenever I exert myself. My sister says it's due to a chemical called Relaxin that your body releases to make childbirth easier. It seems pretty early for it to be happening but I'm not really an expert. I had my first check up at 7 weeks 1 day and Bryan came with me. It was so neat-- they did an ultrasound and we got to see the little bean of a baby! Best of all, we got to see and hear it's heart beating! I had my second appointment a couple of weeks ago at 11 weeks 1 day. As you'll see in the pictures below, baby is starting to take on a rather baby profile! At that appointment his or her heartbeat was a whopping 182 beats per minute! As of today I am exactly 13 weeks and, from what I've read, my baby is the size of a tangerine. I'm heading out of my first trimester already and it seems to have gone by really fast. After my last ultrasound I felt a lot more reassured about not being as sick and now I'm feeling like I'm really lucky! We're very happy to be having a baby in 2013-- for tax and health insurance reasons. Baby couldn't have had better timing! Regardless, I would have been happy to have baby whenever I could. And now, in case you haven't already seen them on Facebook, some pictures:
I think I'll either take these every week or every other, depending on how much change there is. This is me from last week. I feel like a very subtle bump is starting to form but I'm not sure it'll look much different from this. Anyway, wahoo!!!
They say you get a more reliable result if you take a pregnancy test first thing in the morning. I had been planning on taking one on a certain morning in early April but, on a whim, decided to take it the night before as well. I thought if I did it then and it was negative, as I'd expected it to be, that it would soften the blow the following morning. I'm not sure if that logic makes sense but it did to me at the time. When the test was done at first glance it appeared my usual negative sign-- one line. As I focused in more I noticed a very faint second line appearing. I'd never seen that before! I ran downstairs and showed it to Bryan who said, "What is that second line?!?!" We were afraid to get our hopes up so we decided to wait until the morning test to really be confident in it. The following morning, lo and behold, I really was pregnant. I'm not sure how many tests I took but I took a lot. I tried a few different brands, too, just to be sure. Included in those was the Clearblue test that simply said "Pregnant" on it. It was so amazing to see and I could scarcely convince myself to believe it could be true!
A day later it was my mom's birthday and we were headed down to Utah to spend Conference weekend at Bryan's mom's house. It was perfect timing! Since my family are all spread out and not close we called them all on the drive down and decided to wait and surprise Bryan's mom and sister in person. My family were all very excited, especially my mom! I'm her last daughter to have a baby-- I thought it was a pretty great birthday surprise. When we got to Utah Bryan's mom was still at work so we set up a banner across her kitchen ceiling that said, "Congrats, Grandma!" and we'd bought some noise makers from a party store. I was lucky enough to record her reaction to the banner (not seen in the video, as it was above our heads):
Anyway, things have been going along smoothly. To be honest I've been a nervous wreck over how smoothly it has been going, worrying that my hCg levels aren't where they should be or that my baby stopped growing. I bet when the baby comes, healthy and whole, I'll find a new host of things to worry about. I've not really had morning sickness. I've thrown up a total of three times. Usually if I don't eat first thing when I get out of bed I start to feel gaggy and that's when it happens. Other than that I've had a stuffed nose and a blossoming of pimples around my mouth. Nicely descriptive, eh? Both are, apparently, pregnancy symptoms. I've also been having a lot of tailbone pain whenever I exert myself. My sister says it's due to a chemical called Relaxin that your body releases to make childbirth easier. It seems pretty early for it to be happening but I'm not really an expert. I had my first check up at 7 weeks 1 day and Bryan came with me. It was so neat-- they did an ultrasound and we got to see the little bean of a baby! Best of all, we got to see and hear it's heart beating! I had my second appointment a couple of weeks ago at 11 weeks 1 day. As you'll see in the pictures below, baby is starting to take on a rather baby profile! At that appointment his or her heartbeat was a whopping 182 beats per minute! As of today I am exactly 13 weeks and, from what I've read, my baby is the size of a tangerine. I'm heading out of my first trimester already and it seems to have gone by really fast. After my last ultrasound I felt a lot more reassured about not being as sick and now I'm feeling like I'm really lucky! We're very happy to be having a baby in 2013-- for tax and health insurance reasons. Baby couldn't have had better timing! Regardless, I would have been happy to have baby whenever I could. And now, in case you haven't already seen them on Facebook, some pictures:
7 weeks 1 day
11 weeks 1 day
