15 Week Pregnancy Update

Tonight is the last night of my 15th week.  Cannot believe tomorrow I will be 4 months pregnant!  I'm so anxious to get to the doctor.  We have an appointment on Wednesday and we'll get to hear the heartbeat again.  Not too much to report on other than that.  I've been feeling almost completely back to my usual self.  So much so that a couple of times this week I have completely forgotten I was pregnant!  Can you believe that?!  My headaches have almost completely gone away.  I've been on the verge of a headache a couple of times, but they haven't turned into really bad ones, which I'm so grateful for!  Nearly no round ligament pain this week.  Minimal heartburn, and not really craving anything special.

Onto baby...  Baby is the size of a baseball (or orange) this week.  I decided to go with baseball as the theme for the chalkboard, rather than orange, because the St. Louis Cardinals are in the World Series.  My dad is originally from St. Louis and is a pretty big fan.  I've even been to their stadium in St. Louis.  So I was pretty excited that I still fit in my Cardinals shirt to pose for the pic.  But by the end of the day, I felt like it was squeezing me to death! Hah.

No movement that I can feel yet, but I am DYING to feel this little babe move.  I'm just ready for another element to be introduced.  It's interesting to see the belly grow, but having movement will add another aspect of realism to the pregnancy.

Jeremy went hunting with a close friend this weekend.  I went down to visit with my family as my grandmother is very ill.  I'm definitely missing my girlfriends though.  We have this really fun "Friends-giving" Thanksgiving themed potluck with our friends every year a couple weeks before the actual Thanksgiving, and I can't wait to see all of our close friends.  Jeremy and I fry a turkey and Jeremy has brewed his Pumpkin Beer for the party as well.  I'll post pics and recipes as the party gets closer.

Guess that's it for now.  See you all in a wee...

14 Week Pregnancy update

Today is the last day of my 14th week.

I started working out again this week and am using a great DVD Program.  It's Tracy Anderson's The Pregnancy Project.  It's only $12 on Amazon right now and includes 9 DVD's!  I haven't done a single squat or lunge and my glutes and hamstrings are so sore!!  Definitely recommend this series if you don't have a gym membership, like working out at home, have minimal space, and don't need a ton of instruction.  She's not the best at explaining some of the exercises, but you can see her do them herself, and you have the option to eliminate her voice and just play the music if you choose.  I did purchase two 3 pound weights from target and in addition use my yoga mat and dining room chair for some of the exercises.  I had a workout partner with me this week:




I'm definitely feeling better.  My nausea has almost completely subsided, although I've still been pretty exhausted at the end of the day.  Headaches are still around and haven't seemed to get much better.  I've continued to experience the round ligament pains, but they're infrequent.  My tail bone has also really started to hurt, and I haven't done anything to it that I can recall.  I'll have to see if that's also a pregnancy symptom.  I have been CRAVING bean burritos, it gets stuck in my brain and I can't think of anything else.  I would be perfectly happy eating a bean burrito for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  I almost forgot!...I also cut nearly 3 inches off my hair this week!  One of my good friends referred me to her hairstylist and I LOVE how it turned out!

Baby is the size of a lemon this week.  Approximate size is 3.4 inches and 1.5 ounces, which is almost double in weight since last week. Baby has the ability to suck his/her thumb and wiggle his/her toes.  We actually agreed on a baby girl's name this week (BIG VICTORY).  So we have one name on the list so far haha.  It's been pretty easy for me to come up with girl names, but I'm struggling with boy names!

This weekend we celebrated my Mother In Law's (MIL) birthday and I absolutely love the gifts we got her.  I heard a lot of good things about this book and thought it would be perfect for her:  Funny, You Don't Look Like A Grandmother.  I'm also a huge fan of ETSY and love buying personalized gifts from here.  We purchased this personalized wooden sign for her as well.



Well that sums up the week.  If everything goes as planned my mom will be coming up this coming weekend and we'll do a little maternity clothes shopping (I'm struggling to get into my non-pregnant clothes right now!)  See you all in a week!

13 Weeks

We are in week 13 and the last day of the first trimester.  Tomorrow will be the start of the Second Trimester!!!  Can't believe we are one third of the way complete.

It's been a busy week, I had two essays and two exams on top of all of my other assignments this week, in addition to working.  I'm continuing to struggle with headaches, and am not finding much relief in anything.  I've read that headaches can be caused from surging hormones, drops in blood sugar, increased blood volume and circulation, stress, lack of sleep, and even dehydration.  So I've been trying really hard to eat consistently, constantly drinking water, and starting back into exercising to decrease my stress.  But fingers crossed, they also say that they should stop during the second trimester.

 I've also been experiencing "round ligament pain."  During pregnancy, the uterus expands from about the size of an apple to the size of a watermelon.  The ligaments that surround and support the uterus and connect it to your groin are collectively called the round ligaments.  These need to stretch and thicken to accommodate that change, and it can hurt!  They're sharp pains in my lower abdomen/hip area when I move to quickly, go from sitting to standing, coughing, or laughing.

Other then that, I'm feeling good.  I've been craving grilled cheese and bean burritos this week (separately, not together).  I also took my belly button ring out this week, it was visibly sticking out from shirts and looked odd, so it had to go...and do people still have their belly button's pierced??  My sense of smell is absolutely ridiculous.  I could smell my professors breath from 20 feet away (that class is in a lecture hall), and I could smell the city paving a road 3 miles away.  Jeremy has had to throw the trash out almost on a daily basis; if he doesn't, I can't even enter the kitchen without dry heaving.

As you can see in the picture, the baby is the size of a peach, has vocal chords and finger prints.  The baby is about 3 inches long and weighs .8 oz.

That sums up the week.  Here are a few pictures from over the weekend from decorating the front yard for Halloween:

    

Pregnancy announcement: 12 weeks

October 6, 2013

It's been FOREVER since I've last blogged!  I'm a little disappointed in myself, as I really want to record as much about this pregnancy as possible.  But with going back to school, working, my service learning (which is sorta like student teaching), friends, house, and life in general, I'm finding it very difficult to get into the habit of blogging 1x/week, which is the goal.  I'm going to try and at least upload a few pics every Sunday.

Our friends Mike and Tanya brought over our FIRST baby gift, how cute is this?!?!  As of right now we're unsure of the gender, so Tanya was thoughtful enough to put both shorts and a skirt.  This was the kicking off point to our big pregnancy announcement on social media.



That night (9/28/13) we attended the ASU vs USC football game.  It was a great game and the Sun Devils pulled through with a BIG WIN!!!  So at the end of the game we had another fan take a picture of us with the onesie.  With a little editing, we posted this for all of our family and friends to see on Facebook and Instagram.  Love how it turned out!

We also had our second doctor's appointment this week (10/3/13).  We got to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time, which was VERY EXCITING!!!  Each appointment makes it so much more real.  I was texting with my brother about the appointment and his girlfriend wanted to know if I had cried at either one of our appointments.  As you can see my hormones are going nuts and making me cry at random, sometimes inappropriate, times.  Jeremy never knows what my mood is at any given moment, but is taking it all in stride.

Here is a the first picture of our baby!!!  We got this at our first doctor's appointment at 8 weeks (9/2/13).  The baby is on the right and looks like it's kicking a soccer ball.  In reality that "ball" is the yoke sack which no longer exists (that's what feeds the baby in the early days) and the baby is actually standing on it's head!





Last but not least here is the famous chalk board picture.  I'll be doing one of these once a week and updating how I'm feeling.  The first 10 weeks were pretty rough, but from what I've heard, my morning sickness wasn't that bad.  The best way I've come up with to describe it is: it feels just like being extremely hung over.... Every. Single. Day.  At some point, not necessarily in the morning, I felt very nauseous and extremely tired.  I learned to change my eating habits, eating small meals often, and that seemed to keep the nausea at bay.  Once I got to 11 weeks I was finally feeling like the morning sickness was starting to subside, but then I started to get headaches, almost every single day.  A Facebook friend said she had headaches every day when she was pregnant with her daughter, but never had one with her son.  Which I found very interesting, as I've felt like this little one is a boy from very early on.

I've been very conscience of my water intake, which has minimally helped with the headaches.  I think once I started to feel better and the nausea went away, maybe I wasn't eating or drinking as much/as often.  So I'm trying to get back to that.

My little belly "popped" at 11 weeks.  NONE of my pants or shorts are fitting at all!  I'm currently using hair ties and rubber bands, along with a belly band that I purchased at Target to keep my pants up.  I've gone maternity clothes shopping twice.  Once with Jeremy and the place I ended up having the most luck was a baby re-sale store here in Gilbert.  The mall was a joke, and looking online has proved to be difficult as well.  I'm having trouble finding petite maternity clothes as most maternity stores don't carry them and all of the pants are too big and too long.  So for now, I'm sticking to maxi skirts and dresses, who can complain about that?!

We have our next appointment in 4 weeks, then in 6 weeks (at the 18 week mark) we get to have another ultrasound.  We have invited both my parents and Jeremy's parents to this appointment so they can see the baby for the first time.  At that time, only Jeremy will be finding out the gender of the baby.  I have never wanted to find out the gender in advance.  I grew up with both of my parents not knowing what my brother or I was until we were born, so I thought that was the "normal" thing to do.  But Jeremy really wants to find out.  I've heard from others that it allows the dad's to be more connected with the baby if they know the gender.  He's great at keeping secrets, so I'm not nervous about that.  We'll see how long I last.  That's it for now, see you all in a week! 

We're Pregnant!!!

We could not be more happy to announce that we are pregnant!!!  Third time was the charm I guess.

My monthly "friend" was supposed to arrive Friday night and never showed...  So, Saturday afternoon, when Jeremy got home from work, we went down to Walgreen's and bought a pregnancy test.

 I read the box, opened up and read the instructions all before we even pulled into the garage.  I kid you not, before I was done peeing (sorry for the visual) the test appeared positive.  I yell out screaming from the bathroom, "it's positive, it's positive!"  Jeremy claimed I was reading it wrong and asked to look at the directions.  Read them over thoroughly, set the timer for the called for 2 minute wait time, and then re-visited the results.  Of course they were exactly the same, but he wanted to really make sure we were following the directions to a T.

I will be calling my OB/GYN on Monday to schedule my first appointment, which I don't think will be for another few weeks.  From what I've read they want to see you around the 8 week mark.  We are 4 weeks and 6 days along, which is CRAZY to think!!  Almost 5 weeks along, my mind is still blown.

I have already updated my account on thebump.com and I'm really pleased with all the info I've already received from this website.  I've also downloaded a new app.  I was previously using the app called My Days

to track my menstrual and ovulation cycles, but I"m  now using the What to expect Pregnancy app (which is free)

on my iPhone.  It's from the same creators as the book What To Expect When Your Expecting and has a boatload of information.  I'm almost a little overwhelmed and at the moment I'm good with not buying any pregnancy books.  Although, I was thinking of looking into a recipe book for eating organic/whole foods during the pregnancy.  We are already eating this way nearly all the time, but I would like some different recipes to change things up.

Now, for a little about the baby.  Of course I have already calculated the due date (well, the app actually did the calculations) and we are due April 2014 which I am very excited about.  Originally I thought I was due in May and we have a MILLION birthdays already in May and my BFF is getting married in May and the though was completely overwhelming.  But once I switched apps and read a little more into figuring out the due date I was relieved to see April as the new month.

The baby is the size of an orange seed right now, so tiny!  I'm still trying to wrap my head around all of this.  I did the Chinese Calendar on thebump.com and it claims it's going to be a boy, which Jeremy was very happy about.

As for me, I'm a little tired.  My boobs are super sore, and every time I turn around I'm headed back to the bathroom with a full bladder.  The site says the baby is forming right on top of my bladder, putting added pressure on it and decreasing the capacity.  But this should subside in the coming weeks.

I'm so excited to see what I look like with a belly, to hear the heatbeat, see the first picture, and to tell all of our friends and family.  We are going to wait until after my first doctor's appointment to tell our parents, then the siblings and close friends will follow.  I will not be publishing anything about the pregnancy/baby on any social media until after the first trimester.

And with all that being said, I start back to school next Monday!  Oh, and Breaking Bad starts back up tonight, so we're super excited about that too.