WOW bloat!

I knew as soon as I wrote a post about fitting into all my pants, it wouldn't be the case any more. Sure enough, the last couple days the bloat has been pretty bad. Today I put on my jeans for the first time in weeks, and basically I couldn't keep them buttoned and breathe at the same time. So, I broke out the tummy sleeve, folded it down over my unbuttoned jeans, and breathed a little easier for the rest of the day. I was super paranoid that I was looking pregnant, because I knew I was going to see my good friend from high school and was convinced that he would be able to tell. Thankfully he didn't seem to notice my pudge/bloat, but he did tell me that his wife is pregnant with their second baby, and due the day after me! It was so weird to sit there and talk about her pregnancy and their plans, and not say anything about our peanut!

Anyway, this bloat thing is not thrilling me, because I know it's not technically a cute little baby bump and just makes me feel fat and gross. If it hangs around until Saturday (and it probably will), my 10 week picture will look quite a bit different from my 9 week one!

9 weeks

This week the baby is the size of a green olive....almost an inch long and supposedly starting to look more like a baby and less like a tadpole. Still feeling pretty good and only get nauseous when I let myself get too hungry. No major cravings or food aversions. It's been a good week, with not much new to report. This week I've started thinking more about baby gear, strollers, and that kind of stuff. It's REALLY overwhelming, but I think I'm already starting to get a preliminary idea of what I want in various baby items. And I know it's not technically a baby item, but the thing I'm currently obsessing over is a Digital SLR camera. It's been on my wish list for at least a couple years, but now that I have a baby coming I'm getting obsessed (did I already say that?) with making sure that I'm equipped to take really good pictures from the get-go. I took our little Canon point-and-shoot to the beach this weekend, and the pictures I tried to take of my friend's kids didn't even begin to compare to the shots that she got with her DSLR. (For the record, Stewart is not in agreement with me that this is a necessary pre-baby purchase.)

I'm about to head back down to help my mom out for a couple more weeks. When I get back I have my first appointment with my actual ob/gyn, who I haven't even met yet. I'm not sure if I'll have another ultrasound at that point; I hope I do. I'll be 11 1/2 weeks at that appointment, and assuming that everything looks good then, we'll be able to start telling our friends just a few weeks later!

Here's my 9week picture, still not much to show. I'm still able to wear all my regular clothes, although I admit that all I really want to wear are loose skirts and dresses. My sweet husband went to Motherhood Maternity while I was out of town and bought me a Tummy Sleeve so I can keep wearing my regular pants when they get a little tight in the waist; so far I haven't needed to use it. I just think it's cute that he went shopping in a maternity store even before I did!

Hi Peanut!

What a great day! The ultrasound went better than I could have hoped for! The lady (ultrasound tech? ARNP? I don't really know!) was super nice, and surprised me by saying she was going to try for a standard (abdominal) ultrasound, instead of an *ahem* more internal approach. I wasn't expecting this, because I have been reading that most places won't even attempt standard ultrasounds for at least a couple more weeks. Well, it took all of three seconds before she said "Yep, there's someone in there", and there it was! Clear as could be, including the little heartbeat flickering away! She told us that at this time the heart rate should be between 120 and 170, and ours was 154, so right on track. It's also measuring right on schedule...actually one day ahead (8wks4days instead of 8wks3days.) Obviously by this point I was happy as could be, and THEN she said that she'd let us hear the heartbeat...something else I wasn't expecting at this appointment. Oh what a beautiful sound, just chug-chugging away! I didn't cry at all like I thought I might, but I did have a huge silly grin on my face the whole time. And I'm SO glad that Stewart was able to be there. He has now started calling the baby "Peanut", which I think just might be a nickname that sticks around for a while. So happy! :-)

First belly picture (not much to show!)

I feel a little silly taking belly pictures before I really have a baby bump, but I want to have something to compare it to when I do have something to show. I took this at Stewart's grandparents' house before I went to work out. From now on I plan to make Stewart take the pictures! If I were showing my bare belly you'd see the flab/bloat, but I have no desire to allow anyone to look at that right now!

Father's Day Gift

How cute is this??

8 Weeks

This is a big week...our first ultrasound is in just two days! I am excited but nervous, and just want to see that little flickering heartbeat. I know it will calm a lot of my fears, since I keep reading that once you see the heartbeat, the risk of miscarriage drops to 5% or less. I still wish we could fast forward through the rest of the 1st trimester, because I'm sure I'll still do plenty of worrying during those four weeks in between my 8week appointment and my 12week appointment. I think I just need to pray more...

I'm still feeling pretty good. I have had very, very minor nausea that comes and goes, and only one time when I actually thought I was going to throw up. I might have the upper hand on the morning sickness right now, but the fatigue has definitely got it's hold on me. After taking a shower and getting ready in the morning, I am so tired I just want to crawl back into bed. I generally feel like this throughout the rest of the morning until early afternoon (usually after lunch.) I must look miserable, because at the orthopedic rehab center (where mom is recovering from her knee replacement surgery) she keeps offering to get out of bed and sit in a wheelchair so I can go to sleep in the bed. Pitiful.

When I called my dad for Father's DayI told him the big news, and of course he was excited for us. I told him we weren't really telling people yet, but I didn't specifically tell him not to tell my Uncle Frank. So he beat me to it, which is kind of a bummer. Uncle Frank called me to invite me to eat with them tonight, and said that only pregnant nieces were invited. I told him I was bummed that I didn't get to tell him myself. He said "Yea, You should have, because I'm going to kick your butt for not telling me!" And he might have used a slightly stronger word than "butt." He did give me our first baby gift though....a stuffed gator with a little UF hat on its head. Appropriate gift from the world's biggest gator fan.

I didn't get to see Stewart on his first father's day as a daddy-to-be, but I did leave him a little surprise back home. I ordered an adorable little baby T-shirt that said "Daddy's Little Caddy" that is just so freaking cute. He loved it. I'll post a picture as soon as I get back home and have easy access to my own computer. Stewart is going to be the best daddy; I cannot wait to see him holding our baby for the first time. Getting teary just thinking about it!

Oh, I almost forgot to post how much baby has been growing! Legs and arms have started moving! Next week we graduate from embryo to fetus....big moment!

Telling the family- Part 2

This weekend it was my turn to tell my family, first my mom and then my little brother. I was sad that Stewart couldn't be here to tell them with me, but there was just no way he could make it all the way down here.

Here's the background info on how I told mom. Last year she spent a lot of time and effort redoing her back porch, and now when she has people over to the house she often invites them to have a cup of coffee or glass of wine on the porch. She has also started a "porch album", with pictures of people hanging out on the porch. I decided to sneak a little card in to the next blank spot that said "This space reserved for Grandbaby #1, Est. arrival January 31, 2010". Then I planned to nonchalantly flip through the album and ask her "Hey, who is this??" Well, I got the card in the album without her seeing, but getting her to sit down long enough to look at it was another story. She was all over the place, watering flowers, doing this and that. Finally I just said "Why don't you sit down and talk to me?" I already had the album open to the first page, as if I were just looking at the pictures. She said "Oh, I need to get some more pictures in there!", so I flipped to the page with the card and said "Well here's a new one; what is this one?" and handed her the album. She stared at it, confused, for at least fifteen (loooong) seconds. She kept muttering "Huh? Grandbaby? Who?" I even had my camera poised and ready to take a picture of her reaction, but apparently that didn't even tip her off. Of course, she got it eventually!


Here is the page in the album.




The next day I got to tell my brother, on his 26th birthday. I knew he would be psyched, because he has been begging me for a niece or nephew for a while now. He is great with kids and will be a great uncle. He lives in New York, but thankfully we have recently discovered the joys of Skype so I was able to see his reaction. Mom was standing by and took pictures of the computer screen to capture his expression.




I made it through last night's wedding without telling anyone. My BFF did inquire again about my not drinking, and I just said that I have been getting bad headaches every time I have something to drink, so I was just staying away from it for a while. (This is not really untrue, because I've had lots of headache issues in the past, and drinking almost always does bring them on.) The only person who came right out and asked me was my friend Becky's husband, Josh. Luckily, the way he phrased the questions made it pretty easy for me to get out of it. He said "So I'm curious, did you really come down here for your mom's surgery, or to tell her that you're pregnant?" Well, since my mom is having a knee replacement on Tuesday and I'm here for a month to take care of her, it was pretty easy to say "Nope, I'm here for the surgery!" I'm surprised that none of the girls asked me...but then again, Becky is probably responsible for putting Josh up to asking!

Just for fun, here's a picture of us girls at the wedding. We've been friends since middle school, more than 15 years!

7 Weeks!

Yippee, another week completed! I broke the big news to my mom and my brother; pictures and details to come on that. It was a ton of fun. :-) I'm going to a wedding with my high school crew tonight and am honestly a little stressed out about it. I offered to be the designated driver, and my best friend is already asking questions about why I'm not planning to drink at the wedding. I don't want to lie (these are my closest, oldest friends in the world), but I'm just not ready to start sharing the news with anyone else yet. MAYBE I'll tell my closest friends after the 8-week ultrasound, or I might wait until 12 weeks. Right now I'm just concerned about making it through tonight without any major questions. If someone comes right out and asks if I'm pregnant, I don't know what I'm going to say....

I'm having difficulty posting a photo (I'm using my mom's computer and it keeps freezing up on me), but this week the baby is the size of a blueberry. Which is fitting because we went blueberry picking last weekend and have been eating berries nonstop since then. Both hemispheres of the brain are developing this week. Grow some smart brain cells, baby! My brother has insisted that I immediately begin reading him/her some history books. :-) 10 days until our first ultrasound!

Well hello there.....

....nausea and fatigue. Bleh. I woke up at 5am feeling totally queasy. It helped to get up and eat something and sip on some Sprite, but that only lasted for a little while before the nausea returned. Plus I'm exhausted and have no energy. I even took a midmorning nap (and I am NOT normally a napper.) I have a 7 hour drive ahead of me tomorrow, followed by a beach/wedding weekend with friends, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this doesn't get any worse in the next few days.

Telling the family- Part 1

Yesterday was the big reveal, when we told Stewart's family our big news. After church we went to his grandmother's house for lunch (a good southern fish fry that made my husband's soul glad.) His parents and brother were there, along with his other grandparents who live out of town but just happened to be visiting. After we had eaten, his brother was getting ready to leave, but Stewart told him to wait because he had a picture that he wanted to show everyone. We had put a photo of the positive pregnancy test in a frame, which he showed to his mom first. Here's her reaction!

This was actually her initial look of disbelief (Dad apparently hadn't figured out what was going on yet.) I wish I had gotten her second reaction, which was like the above, but multiplied by 10. Needless to say, they were thrilled.

Here is Stewart's grandfather and two grandmothers after we broke the news. You can even see Granda wiping her eyes....she admitted later that she was so happy that she teared up.


Unfortunately Stewart's sister was out of town, but we told her on the phone that evening. We had left a message for her to call us, and when she did Stewart proceeded to beat around the bush and talk about random stuff for 10 minutes. I could tell that Amber was getting more and more exasperated with him. Finally he just said, "Hey, Mom has a picture I want you to go look at." And let me tell you, Amber certainly came through with the screaming! We couldn't even understand half of what she was saying, but we definitely got "I'm going to be an auntie!!!"

It really was so much fun to tell them the news and get to talk about what's been going on the last few weeks. Now I can't wait to tell my mom in person on Friday, and my brother on Saturday (his birthday). I haven't been able to think of a good birthday present for him, so hopefully this will distract him from my lack of gift. :-)

6 weeks

Today marks the official 6-week mark! Each week feels like a milestone accomplishment. It has now been two and a half weeks since we found out I'm pregnant. It still seems to be going by slowly, probably because I'm so anxious to get out of the "danger zone" of time when things typically go wrong in pregnancies. I know I will feel much better once we see/hear a heartbeat at my 8 week appointment, and will finally be able to relax after the 12 week appointment. After that second appointment is probably when we'll start telling everyone that we're expecting. Tomorrow is when we're telling Stewart's parents, since I'll be out of town for about a month starting next weekend. We didn't think it would be very fair to wait until I got back to tell them, and I wasn't about to let Stewart spill the beans without me being there.

Look how big baby is this week! The size of a sweet pea!

This week the heart starts beating and the blood starts to circulate. Crazy!

I love baby stuff!

I have always loved buying baby stuff, and luckily I've had lots of friends to buy for over the last few years. I actually had to make a conscious effort about a year ago to cut back on all the baby gifts I was buying, because I was getting a little carried away. But my love for baby stuff has not waned, and now that I'm pregnant I'm so looking forward to being able to go baby shopping for my OWN little baby (I still can't believe it!!!) Unfortunately we're going to have to put a major limit on the amount of stuff we buy, because of a lack of space and money. The baby won't have an actual nursery until we move out of this apartment, which will probably be when he or she is around 6 months old. So that will cut back on the stuff I will be able to buy for a baby's room. We may even forgo a crib, bedding, etc. until we have moved. As for the money thing, we've been saving and saving and will be ok, but since we'll be without an income for about 6 months, things are going to be tight. So no frivolous baby spending for me. However, these practical realities have not stopped me from wanting to look at all the cute things out there! Look at some of my favorite things I've found so far.

The most adorable baby shoes ever, from Gracious May. I may need to look for a pattern to try to make something like this when the time comes.




The wealth of cute baby stuff on Etsy is ridiculous. This style from M.E.K.O. Kids is a "pillowcase dress", which I've also had on my list of things to learn how to make.


If we have a boy, someone's going to have to talk me down from going overboard preppy. Look at these things from Ralph Lauren!








I think baby legwarmers are the cutest. You can buy them almost anywhere now.