Holidays!

Now that I'm past 22 weeks, there's no nifty weekly size comparison.  My little turtle is growing at his own pace now.  I've been loving and hating feeling him kick me, reminding me that he's there and making me uncomfortable at the same time.  It is a very weird sensation to be kicked in the bladder!

We spent several days with the Carpenters and Jemisons on Signal Mountain, and on Monday drove to Wilmington, NC to be with my brothers, sisters and nieces for the week.  It has been great to talk with my sister-in-laws about pregnancy and having babies and to be with the little girls.  They are vaguely interested in my pregnancy to my face, but have spent all week putting baby dolls in their shirts and talking about going to the hospital.

Will and Henry got an iPad from my Mom for Christmas and Myers introduced them to a game called Minecraft that they and Patrick have been playing a ridiculous amount.  We have 5 Apple laptops, 2 iPads, an iMac, a iPhone, and 2 iPod Touches in the house, which is a little bit more than slightly ridiculous.

 Before deciding to monopolize all the computers in the house

 Opening presents from Aunt Sarah

 Aunt Sarah, Lily Kate, and Lillian

 Uncle Patrick and Charlotte on the trampoline my Mom gave Lily Kate and Charlotte

 Helping Charlotte eat dinner

 A hourly occurrence

 Charlie-boo

 Uncle Will and Uncle Henry at the Children's Museum

 Lily Kate and Liz

  Patrick, Sarah, Will, and Myers

What Henry did most of the time at the Children's museum

A Little Off Schedule...

I don't know if anyone's noticed, but I used to make weekly posts on Mondays, but since our due date goes changed, I'm no longer getting "week" emails on Sunday.  I'm not sure when I'll get my next one, but I am now 21 weeks, almost 22 (I guess).  The whole thing gets confusing when you're not totally sure when you conceived and have to rely on how big the baby is for a due date and a schedule.  My mom says I should just listen to my own body, and from that I can say I agree with the doctor.  I've always thought the baby was just a little bit bigger and I was just a little bit farther along than the books and website said.

I will post a "how big is baby at 22 weeks" post later, but right now, my life is even more off schedule than not being sure what week I am in my pregnancy!  I came back to Chattanooga early to help my Mom after her surgery yesterday on her wrist.  She had to have a plate put in it because one of the bones shattered.  Patrick and I met my family part way to Chattanooga to have lunch on Sunday and I've been away from him since then.  It's very strange.

The baby decided it was high time to let me know he was there the day of the ultrasound and I've been dealing with the kicks and punches ever since.  Patrick is jealous he hasn't been able to feel him yet, but I know that's coming soon!  Today, Mom comes back from the hospital and hopefully Patrick will be able to come tonight.  He's doing a lot of prep work for when he's on vacation over the next week and a half and may have to stay so late at work he wouldn't feel good about driving to Chattanooga.  I hope I don't have to spend another night without him!  Mom is going to be in pain, Henry is feeling sick, and Sarah has to work.  I need another head to help me during the day.  I feel like I can do everything physically, but that my brain isn't working well enough to remember everything I need to do.

So I don't leave this post without a picture, this was the picture we used for our family Christmas card this year. (Edited because Patrick thought my previous picture was weird.)

He's a Boy!

Yesterday, Becca and I went in for the much anticipated 20-week ultrasound. We were told that we might get the opportunity to find out if we would be having a boy or a girl, but as Becca said so many times, "I just want to see my baby!"

And see him we did! I was not prepared for how beautiful the baby would appear, not yet born and just by ultrasound technology. Now, the moment you've all been waiting for... pictures!


Here you can see his little head. He was curled up the whole time we were watching, so we didn't get to see his face yet. For a moment, he brought one of his hands up to his face, maybe to suck his thumb?

We watched him kicking his tiny feet back and forth for a good while, before he showed us that he was a boy. I won't be posting a picture of that. It might embarrass him when he's a teenager, and I wouldn't have that!


This is something I found fascinating... look at his spine! This is one thing you can admire in an ultrasound that you can't see with the naked eye when the child is born. At one point, he turned just so, and his whole rib cage glinted. Just amazing to me!

We had a few more (blurry) pictures, so I won't post them all. Other than this, the doctor just said that our son is looking normal and healthy, so we are grateful for that! Also, our due date got moved up from May 1st to April 27th, since the ultrasound showed our son to be a little larger than expected.

Everybody's asking if we have a name yet... we have one that we like at the moment, but we can discuss it a lot more since we only need to consider boy names now. I'll save the baby names for a later post: I think this was news enough for one day!

20 Weeks!

Wow! I can't believe we're half way through!  This has been a really crazy journey for us, with all of the emotional and family turmoil, and we are ready for next year, when pretty much all we have planned is having the baby.  I will be so glad when our days are more regular and Patrick will work normal hours.

I'm so glad that we get to have our ultrasound tomorrow!  We're going to post again then, with the new ultrasound picture, but for now, we know our baby is around 6.5 inches, or the length of this Mac mini:

DISNEY WORLD! (19 Weeks)

This is quick post because we're at Disney World (yay!) and it's really late, I'm super tired, and internet is kind of expensive.

We are staying at the Caribbean Beach Resort in a really nice, "Finding Nemo" themed room.  It's bee really great to stay at the resort and be able to take shuttles everywhere we need to go.  We also really like having the dining plan, which let's us ignore the ridiculous prices of the food here!

We got here late Saturday afternoon and went to eat out when our friends drove in.  Sunday we went to Animal Kingdom during the day and went to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party in Magic Kingdom that night.  Today we went to Disney's Hollywood Studios during the day, ate an early dinner at the Moroccan restaurant in Epcot, walked around for a while and went to a late second dinner at the Hoop Dee Doo Revue.  We made the mistake of taking the boat shuttle from the Wilderness Lodge to Fort Wilderness and it took forever! I was sure I could even eat anything, and even though we didn't eat a whole lot, the show was really great!  I laughed super hard and the audience was great.

Tomorrow we are going to Epcot all day with dinner in Germany and Wednesday we're going to Magic Kingdom during the day, including lunch with the characters from Winnie the Pooh, and the Cirque de Soliel show in the evening.  Then Thursday we're going to go to the Universal Islands of Adventure where I really want to go the Wizarding World of Harry Potter!  Then Friday we will do everything we missed or want to do again and shop for souvenirs.  Saturday we get on a plane to come to our freshly painted and updated house that our friends Jason and Robin have been working on all week!  I can't wait for Tuesday and our ultrasound either!

Our baby is the same size as this Dumbo stuffed animal, about 6 inches

Disney in a Few Days! 18 Weeks!

For the long holiday weekend we got to home to Chattanooga and spend a lot of time with my (Becca's) family.  We also got to visit our friend Kevin and Leslie and their new baby Ella.  She was four days old and Patrick and I got to hold her for around 3 hours.  We also got to talk to Kevin and Leslie about the experience of labor and being in the hospital.  It was good to hear, because I found out for sure from my mom that she had never gone through labor!  That makes me really nervous, just because I know she won't be able to give me any advice and sympathy while I'm in labor.

We're getting ready to go to Disney!  There are so many things to take care of before we go.  We're going to get some work done on our house while we are gone, so we have to make sure that that is taken care of.  We also need to pack, make sure we have all the tickets... there's a lot to take care of.

Our baby is growing apace.  We're so excited that there is only two weeks before we have another ultrasound and hopefully we can find out if we're going to have a little boy or a little girl.  I can't wait to find out and to get bigger!  I want to feel the baby move and to really be big enough to look pregnant.  I'm already uncomfortable, so I might as well look huge!

Our baby is 5.5 inches, about as big as this toy.

We picked out our baby room color and bought the bulk of the furniture!  We are planning on having that room and some others painted, as well as some crown molding and new baseboards put in while we are at Disney.  We are going to pick out our glider rocker this week.  Soon it will be time for baby showers!

Welcome Baby Ella! (17 Weeks)

This morning I work up to a text message telling me our sweet friends Leslie and Kevin Terry just had their baby girl Eleanor Marie!  Leslie has been my pregnancy buddy, both us us checking in with each other.  We're so excited to be able to met her this weekend!  I know I want Patrick to hold a brand new baby since he hasn't before and I know it makes him nervous.  We're going to Chattanooga Wednesday night for the long Thanksgiving weekend and I am so excited to be able to spend all that time with Patrick.

The baby is about 5 ounces and 5 inches long right now and it's getting closer to the day when we get to find out if it's a boy or girl!  Our appointment is on December 14th, which is my niece Lillian's 3rd birthday!

Our baby is a wide as this belt buckle.

 

Apparently, our baby's weight will increase approximately six times over the next four weeks. Crazy, right?  It will be almost 2 pounds!  We'll see how much bigger I get in that time too!

16 Weeks!

Today when I was having my morning crackers, the ones I eat so that I won't get too hungry between getting up and making my cereal (ridiculous but necessary), I think I might have felt the baby for the first time!  Still not totally sure, because it was a little bit too high, but even if it wasn't, I know that's coming very soon!  It felt like gas a little below my belly button, but definitely close to the surface.

Right now the baby is somewhere between four and five inches, average around 4.6 inches, or the size of the diameter of this figurine.

Apparently, I was totally mistaken when I thought the baby couldn't really heard more than the vague sound of voices around it.  Right now the baby can tell both of our voices apart and distinguish music as well.  Crazy!  As soon as Patrick found out the baby could hear him, he started laying his head his head on my belly every night when we get in bed and talking to the baby.  He just told me he plans on doing that every night until the baby is born.

We're getting really excited for all the fun things we have planned the next month and a half!  I, of course, decided to make it even busier by getting a couple lolita events together, for this weekend and December 18th.  There's not too much time before I won't be able to wear any of my pretty clothes anymore, which is really sad.  But I'm excited to have this holiday season!

Third Heartbeat -15 Weeks

Today I had another doctor appointment, the last one before our next ultrasound.  I'm so excited!  35 days until we (hopefully) get to know if we're having a boy or girl!  This appointment and the last one were pretty boring, except for hearing the heartbeat.  This time the nurse found it right away so I didn't get to hear it for long.  It's amazing how much tension leaves my body as soon as I hear that little whump-whump. 

Our little turtle is around four inches.  It was hard to find pictures by searching "four inches" so I stole the picture from the Nickelodeon parent website, which is kind of a hilarious website.
Our baby, the Kit-Kat:

It's even harder to find a good picture of a Kit-Kat too. 



We are going to be so busy the next month and a half!  We're going back to Chattanooga this weekend, then again in a week and a half for Thanksgiving.  The weekend after Thanksgiving is Patrick's company Christmas party and then the next day we go to Disney World for a week!  After we get back from Disney, we have our next doctor appointment, then a week later, it's Christmas!  We're going to Chattanooga for about 5 days and then going to Wilmington, NC to visit the Carpenters for a week.  Whew!

Feeling Pregnant

It's kind of amazing. I haven't gotten bigger, but recently I've embraced my pregnant state wholeheartedly.  I don't know if it's just the way I've been able to talk a bunch of people's ears off about being pregnant.  Winship's death brought so many of my family members together, and we've wanted to reconnect with all of our friends, and we've seen almost all of our Huntsville friends since we got back from Chattanooga.

Unfortunately for me, being in my second trimester doesn't mean all the nausea and tiredness is gone, just the majority of it.  I'm still sleeping long periods of time, but I don't feel as tired when I'm awake.  It's also easier for me to fall asleep, which is a relief.  If last night was any indication, I think it's going to be harder to stay asleep.  I wake up thirsty and having to pee a few times a night, and I know that's just going to increase.  But like I tell all my friends who haven't been pregnant, this isn't fun, but it's TOTALLY worth it.  Especially when you have a husband as wonderful as mine.

Speaking of Patrick, I have to gush about him for a minute.  We've taken a lot of time off this year.  By the end of the year, it will have been around 7 weeks.  That means Patrick has been working extra every day to take as much of that time off as comp time.  The time we want to take off could be tackled at this point using vacation, but Patrick wants to save that for when the baby is born so he doesn't have to work extra during my third trimester and will still be able to take off two weeks when the baby is born.  That's right, he's already the world's best dad.

Two Weeks Later

Probably anybody who is reading this blog in the approximate time-frame that it is being written knows about what happened last Wednesday. We are very sad that our baby will never get to meet Uncle Winship here in this life. Becca and I are doing okay for the most part. I survived my first week back to work, and we are surrounding ourselves with friends and support.

We have been very thankful to have our little baby on the way through all this. It is a reminder that, even when faced with death, there is still new life to bring us hope!

So, here's your growth update: the baby, being 14 weeks along the way, is supposed to be the approximate size of a lemon, or 3.4 inches. You know how I feel about that, so here is my personal size comparison:

Our baby could stretch diagonally across the wide-screen upper display of the Nintendo 3DS, which, as it turns out, our baby's father is very excited about! See, now whenever any of you see a 3DS, this is the only thing you'll be able to imagine.

So, baby-wise, how have things been going for us? Well, Becca has been reading a few baby books for awhile now: What to Expect when You're Expecting and the Mayo Clinic Healthy Pregnancy, as well as a Baby Bargains. She recently also got the book Hypnobirthing. This book sounds great in that it helps women not to go into labor fearing a lot of pain. Normally I would be suspicious of the self-hypnosis claim, but our baby's Aunt Laura used the techniques in this book to great effect!

The baby book thing is something I'm just getting started on now. Becca got me a couple of books: Check Lists for the New Dad and Be Prepared. I haven't really started with the check lists yet, but I am really enjoying Be Prepared so far. The artwork is reminiscent of a Boy Scouts Handbook (where "be prepared" is the Scout Motto). For just an idea, you can look at the first few pages over at Amazon by clicking on picture of the book.

Oh yeah, and Becca just borrowed an insane amount of "names for your baby" books from our friend Britni. So we'll see what comes of that!

Becca and I are really enjoying learning about what's to come! As always, thanks for prayers!

First Post from the Dad-to-Be

It's been almost a week since Becca set this blog up, and I was finally able to sit down and join it today. I've been working a lot lately, as Becca mentioned in a previous post, but I'm looking forward to when I max out my comp time hours so I can drop down to a normal workweek!

So, how am I feeling about having a baby on the way? Well... just great! I already have a lot of love in my heart for this baby, and I don't even know yet whether to expect a boy or a girl. I haven't been good yet about reading baby books or anything, but part of that is just not having free time. Also, Becca might just be starting to show. I'm sure it will feel a lot different when I can see the baby, rather than just know that there is a baby.

Right now, Becca is 12 weeks pregnant, and The Bump says that our baby is the size of a plum. Of course, our baby is unique, and not just a plum like every other 12-week baby. So I came up with my own size reference. When talking size, I like to say "tall" instead of "long". "Long" sounds more like a thing, and "tall" sounds more like a person. So, our baby is as tall as this turtle is wide (note that this also fits the turtle theme, since the baby looked like a turtle in the ultrasound):

This photo was used without permission from the Turtle Journal (Saving the World, One Turtle at a Time), but I bet they will forgive me if they ever find out about it.

Becca's been feeling sick and tired for awhile now, but she's just about through the first trimester now! We're both excited about that! I try my best to be nice to her and help her out whenever I can, even though I'm pretty tired myself a lot of the time. I'm sure we'll both be even more tired when the baby is born, but we will also have a whole new source of love to give us strength!

Becca and I went to Target today to look at baby stuff while we were waiting for the Maple Hill Cemetery Stroll event today (where people dress up like the notable residents of said cemetery and tell their stories... very interesting, but off subject...). We weren't planning on setting up a gift registry at Target, but they had some stuff there that I loved (yes, me, Patrick... Becca loves them too, but I loved them first) and felt like I had to have it for my baby. We got home and found that they had good reviews, so we set up the registry. Maybe we'll add other stuff to it later, but anyway, it's there. Special note if somebody wants to get a jump on baby stuff: the bouncer comes for free with the swing! Don't waste any money buying the bouncer! I apologize to everyone for commercializing my baby's blog from my very first post.

We're really excited to find out in December whether we will have a boy or a girl. Of course we will be happy either way! We'll let you all know as soon as we find out; count on it!

Thanks to all who care about us and who love our baby! Please pray for all three of us!

Patrick and Babymoon

 This is an email from my sweet husband:

I was thinking about how we're gonna have a baby earlier today.  It made me smile a lot.  Also, today's been going way better than yesterday!

He's been working 9 to 11 hour days to earn enough comp time so we can do everything we want to in December.  That way all the vacation he's earned this year will roll over to next year and by May, he should have all the vacation time he needs to be with me when the baby is born!

The first full week in December we're going with his coworker and his wife to Disney World!  His wife works at Disney about one week a year so she can have free tickets for the whole year!  We're all going to be able to go to for free and stay in one of the Disney resorts for 40% off.  We're going to go to Mickey's Christmas Party and probably take a day off of Disney to go to Islands of Adventure so we can go to HARRY POTTER WORLD.  I know I should be more excited about Disney, and I am, but Harry Potter World?  Real butterbeer? The shopping?! Very excited.

We're planning to go to Chattanooga for Christmas on Tuesday night December 21st and will leave for Wilmington, NC on Monday December 27th to stay for the week.  Of course we don't really know if that's going to work, but we'll see.

Patrick is planning on posting on the blog too, he just hasn't had the time yet.

Doctor's Appointment!

Today we had our second and a half doctor's appointment!  At our first appointment in late August, the ultrasound showed a baby about a week and a half smaller than it should be, so we went back two weeks later September 14th to see if the baby was growing and just a little later than they thought.  And it was!  We got an ultrasound picture and even heard the heartbeat!  That brings our due date to May 1st.

Our little turtle baby at 7 weeks

This appointment was pretty short, just to make sure I was doing okay.  We listened to the heart beat, which is at 170 beats per minute, and the doctor answered a couple of my questions and told us we would have another ultrasound in two months, the appointment after next.  We asked if it was okay to tell people now and he said that since the heart pulse was so good and strong that he is confident we're all okay!

First trimester is hard as far as symptoms go, but I've been doing okay.  I feel nauseous most of the time, but I don't throw up and I can keep it manageable by eating almost constantly.  I can still wear my pants, but they put a lot of pressure on my tummy so I've been wearing my "fat" pants.  My back hurts sometimes, and sleeping can be difficult sometimes.  My sense of smell and hearing is a lot more keen and I've found I'm not really interested in things like clay or crafting, or even fashion, but that I have a lot of nesting instinct and want to get my house in order!