26 Weeks Update and Nursery Preview

Baby Amelia has been pretty active lately. I can feel her rolling around and not just kicking anymore! A couple of times, it's been uncomfortable, but at least a lovely reminder that things are good in there.

From the outside, I'm finally starting to look more pregnant than just fat.

Check me out at 25 weeks!

Here at 26 weeks and 2 days, we're looking ahead to our joint shower/diaper party and my baby shower, in July and August, respectively. In the meantime, we are taking inventory of what we have and what we need. 

Her room's looking pretty awesome if you ask me, but it's still not quite finished. I'm hoping to have it mostly ready to go by mid-July so we can sort all the goodies we get in there. 

Want a preview? Here are some pics of what we have so far:

The curtains hadn't been switched out at this point yet.

The rain & clouds & umbrella here are a model from Pinterest, not the finished product,
 but you get the idea.

Curtain fabric up close

The curtains my mom made for us

This will be where we hang all her bows and accessories

A gift from Uncle Brian and Grandma Nancy

That's all for now. Check in later!

Week 24 - Quick Update

Had our 24 week appointment today and everything is going smoothly so far. She's measuring right above my belly button now and her little heartbeat is consistent and strong at about 154 bpm every time we go in. Today, however, was probably the last appointment David will be able to go to with me, as he starts his new job at Miniature Market in St. Louis next Tuesday. In about four weeks I'll have to do my 28-week labs and glucose screening, so I'm hoping that goes as well as everything else has thus far.

I feel her move every day now. It's super cool, but still a little weird, especially as it gets stronger. The other day she got me so hard it kind of scared me. I haven't seen any movement from the surface yet though, and my belly button is still a major innie, so for those things I can also be temporarily thankful.

It's a Girl!

A week ago Friday, we had our anatomy scan ultrasound where we learned the baby's gender and that everything was looking really good. (Thus far, holding my pee before that appointment has been, by far, the hardest part of my pregnancy.) It was nice to see baby, though, much bigger this time, and we got 10 pictures out of the visit (including one really cool one of a hand - you can see all the little bones in the fingers). We also learned that she's a little big for her gestational age at 14 oz., and bc of that and since I have short cycles, Dr. Talsky moved my due date up to Sept. 13 from Sept. 15.

We held the secret for the rest of that day, which included a banquet at work for me, and the next day, in which I had the Color Run and Kevin and Kelsey's wedding, and then we held an official gender reveal lunch on Sunday, where we did a fun little reveal using Silly String. 

First, we asked everyone to guess the gender, and we took a group picture. Then we went out to the front of the house and let my mom, David's mom and David's dad spray us with pink Silly String to reveal that we are having a little girl. We are calling her Amelia Harper.

Everyone is really excited! David's mom never got a little girl, and mine was excited to dress her up all cutesy, but really, we would have been happy either way. 

This week, 21 weeks along, I learned those feelings I have been having are indeed baby kicks, and they are getting stronger. David was even able to feel them last night by pressing into the bottom right side of my tummy. He was super excited and said it was "the best feeling in the world." It was very cute, and I was happy to be able to share that with him. 

This morning she started kicking a bunch when Mini kitty sat on my stomach, I think because she purrs so loudly. She doesn't do that with Sadie Gray yet. 

Checking in at 19 Weeks

Over the past few days, I think I've finally started feeling the baby move a little... although it could all be in my imagination, or wishful thinking.

I've read on various forums that sometimes it feels like flutters, and sometimes gas bubbles, and sometimes like someone's flicking you lightly from the inside. From my perspective, the third description seems like the most accurate. I guess I'll find out when they get stronger, and I'm able to more easily identify the feeling, but for now, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. 

On Friday, we find out if we are having a boy or a girl. We've decided to keep it a secret for a few days until we can do the big reveal with our families at the house on Sunday, because we've got a busy weekend ahead (Honors Banquet on Friday night, Color Run and two weddings on Saturday). I threw together some decorations and I need to start cleaning the basement and putting them up this week. Not sure how exactly we'll do the reveal yet, whether it's cake or balloons, but we've got a few more days to think on it. 

Cuz bowties are cool.

We've got girl names and boy names picked out, but I'm not sure when we'll share them with the masses. Maybe we'll share the one we intend to use once we know the gender. We may want to keep the other one in our back pocket in case we have more kids (I'd like 2-3 total).  

In other news, baby is now the proud owner of a nice bed my mom found at a garage sale, and a few other furniture items. And this, of course, a souvenir from Wizard World Comic Con St. Louis. (We saw Matt Smith and Karen Gillan, among others, in person!)

 Baby's first TARDIS

I'll check back in next week! In the meantime, take our Survey Monkey survey and tell us what you think - boy or girl.

16 Week Update

Just a quick update following my 16 week check up this morning (at 15 weeks, 4 days).

This month I battled a number of infections, for which I was on a number of "pregnancy safe" antibiotics, but otherwise had no complaints.

Everything looked good at the appointment.

I did gain 5 pounds within the last month, which seems kind of steep for this early in the pregnancy. I am looking bigger around the middle these days and wearing a lot of my friend Emily's hand-me-down larger, non-maternity clothing to feel comfortable, but there's not much of a bump there, if any at all. Until this morning, I thought my uterus was much lower than apparently it is, so maybe some of that pudge is actually a bump now after all.

The nurse practitioner found baby's heartbeat immediately, which was a steady and strong 157 bpm.

At next month's appointment, on April 25, we should be able to tell whether he or she is a little boy or girl! I can't wait. I guess I should start researching fun ways to "reveal the gender" to our families and friends. Mostly I am looking forward to looking for cute baby stuff to put on our registry. I haven't let myself do that thus far because there are far too many gender specific things out there and I don't want to find myself daydreaming and leaning one way or another, when really all we care about is a healthy and happy baby.

Pregnancy Update!

Today/tomorrow (depending on which website you pay attention to, I'm 14 weeks along! And as usual, I have not updated this blog in a very, very long time.

Let's rewind a little, with a little help from my written, private journal, which I keep up only a little more efficiently than this blog ;):

Just before Valentine's Day, around 9 weeks, we told our parents, using heart-shaped mini boxes of chocolate and cute little Valentine's Day cards. Now that I think about it I should have taken a photo of them before we sealed them up, but David's parents' card said something along the lines of "Roses are red, violets are blue, September 2014 is when baby is due." Both sets of "grandparents-to-be" were pretty excited!

Although it felt good to tell some people, it still didn't feel real until that first doctor's appointment, which was Feb. 28. We heard the heartbeat and saw our little one on the ultrasound for the first time. It was really exciting! He or she was bouncing around a lot in there, and appeared to be sucking his/her thumb at one point. It will be weird when I can feel all that. 

Here's baby's first photo: 

That night, we celebrated with dinner at Applebee's and then telling our closest friends. On Sunday, we told some extented family, and on Monday, which was another snow day, we went "Facebook official."

It's all much more real now. I'm still not "showing" in a way that anyone can tell, and I haven't gained much weight, but my clothes are definitely tighter. I really just look fatter. I tried on clothes Friday to clean my closet up a bit, and almost none of my pants fit me at all :/ Although it's cold again today and supposed to snow, it has gotten significantly warmer over the last few days, and I'm looking forward to full on spring, skirts, and nice weather. 

Yesterday, some of my friends ran the St. Pat's Parade 5-Miler in St. Louis. This was my first time NOT doing that race in the past three or four years, and it felt kind of weird, even though I'm not the biggest fan of that race and even got sick last year after doing it (I think I had already come down with something - which would explain my less than stellar time). We have been playing some tennis since the time change, so I'm trying to keep active, but my back's been pretty sore, so it's not as easy as I would have thought. Even this early. Anyway, that's the update for now!

Inlows +1

Even though we haven't told anyone yet (and I won't publish this until we do), I decided to start a blog post about a coming addition to our little family. No, we're not getting another cat... we're having a baby!

Up to this point I've been pretty nervous to even say anything privately and jinx us (although I've obviously told David), as I know miscarriages are pretty common this early (did you know than 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage?). We plan to tell our families in a few weeks when it's a safer bet, and everyone else anytime between that and 12 weeks (if all goes to plan). In the meantime, we've decided to let ourselves get a little excited and enjoy this little one instead of worrying 24/7. As someone said on one of the forums I've been frequenting, "Be happy that today, you're pregnant." So I am.

Here are the highlights thus far:

4 weeks
On Friday evening, Jan. 4, 2014, I was sitting in Grandma Wittman's recliner and watching "Game of Thrones" on my iPad, when I randomly decided to take a break, use the restroom and have a warm bath. I don't know what possessed me to do so, but I took a pregnancy test. Somehow, I already knew, but was still in shock after seeing that second line. I had taken a few tests in previous months, thinking I "felt pregnant," and of course I was always wrong before and the line never showed. This time it was there, and it was clear as day. Hindsight is 20/20, but suddenly the super weird dreams I had been having over Christmas break, the slight nausea after eating too much pizza and the extreme fatigue (no matter how much sleep I got) started to make sense. My hands shook with nervous excitement. I could have told David in some creative way, or I could have waited, but instead I came right out and showed him the test. He was sick at the time, and medicated, so the news didn't quite sink in until later, but even he couldn't deny the test result.

That weekend was a long and snowy one. On Monday, even the doctor's office was closed (as was Lewis and Clark, where I work) so I had to wait another day to call and make an appointment. I read online that miscarriages are very common before 8 weeks, so knowing we had a whole month ahead of us felt daunting. I took another test that day "to make sure." Again, positive. On Wednesday, I saw Dr. Ricci and had a blood test done to test for pregnancy and my thyroid levels. On Friday, his office called - my levels looked great, and the test, again, was positive. Third time's a charm - after having it confirmed by a medical professional and not just me and a cheap at-home test, we decided to let ourselves get excited about the happy news, even though my first appointment with the OB isn't until the end of Feb. (11 weeks) and that's scary. We're just taking it day by day and feeling lucky for what is ours at the moment. We even know two names we like already, although I have no idea if they will still be on the list in 9 months. Lincoln for a boy, and Violet for a girl.

5 weeks
This week, if baby is growing according to schedule, he or she is now officially an embryo about the size of an appleseed. These next few weeks, according to all the reading I've been doing on The Bump, Baby Center and "What to Expect When You're Expecting,"are crucial because they're when all of his/her organs will be forming (and some will even start to function). I would bet that's why most miscarriages happen during the early weeks, being that the number one reason they happen is that baby is not developing properly. I know I'm being a worrywart and things will probably be OK, but just in case I'm doing most all the right things - exercising (at least as much as I did before I got pregnant), hydrating, and taking a prenatal vitamin every day at dinner (so as not to interfere with my thyroid meds, which are important for me and for baby). I'm not eating badly, though I could eat better, so I'm working on that. I mostly haven't had any caffeine, although I know it's safe to have a little. It just hasn't seemed appealing, even though normally when it's this cold out I drink a pot of coffee a day! As long as that's the case, it's easy to completely abstain - especially since it's not good for me anyway. I'm watching the few pregnancy symptoms I do have for any changes, which could be a hint that something is wrong, but there's not a lot I can do other than stay positive and believe in the power of positivity. So far, I've not experienced any more "sickness." Mostly, it's just light cramping from time to time, digestion issues and fatigue. My chest is a little sore, so I catch myself from time to time checking them to make sure they still are. I read here that the chance of miscarriage drops to about 5 percent between 6-8 weeks, so we're almost there.