New pictures of our baby

Hello everyone. Greetings from the second trimester of my pregnancy!!! I've never been this pregnant before and it's been amazing to watch the pregnancy continue and develop. We went in for an ultra sound last Friday, Feb 12th to screen the baby for down's syndrome. It was such a great experience. Normally when I go in for an ultra sound I go to radiology where they aren't very pregnancy friendly. The dad is the only one who can see the screen and so during any given appt I got to see the baby for all of about 30 seconds. Well for this ultra sound they do it on the maternity floor with a screen for the mom's to look at as well. The baby was being stubborn and the tech had a hard time getting measurements so we got about a 45 minute session just getting to stare at our baby :)

We saw the baby kick and spin and do a full flip. (I'm calling the baby a him from now on, easier to say than "it". But we won't be finding out the sex so don't take that to mean that he will really be a he) We also got to see him sleep, this annoyed the tech because he was in the wrong position and so she shook him and made me turn from one side to another, and even get up and take a long walk. Over all it was just an amazing experience and I wish I had another ultra sound soon! My next and probably last one will be somewhere around the 18-20 week range.

Even though I'm out of the first trimester I'm still pretty sick. I was hoping it would magically go away, but so far it hasn't. I'm fine with it, it's kind of a pain in the butt, but I welcome the symptoms and the strong reassurance.

We're down to less than a month til Kolt's family gets here! I'm so excited to get to see them. I might get to go back to Idaho at the end of March after their visit. My sister has spring break then and Kolt will be doing a field training all of that week, so we're looking at me going back home to see my family. That's almost 3 weeks of family time in March, I hope! That will be so great!

I really think I'm finally starting to legitimately show now. For bed at night I wear t-shirts, the same ones I've always worn and they're pulling really tightly across my belly :) I told Kolt the other day I don't remember them ever being this tight before, he said that's because they haven't been :)

Here are the pictures. If you look in the last one the gestational sac is shaped like a heart, I didn't notice at first but a couple of friends pointed that out!

Keeping it all in Perspective

Today on the pregnancy blog I am on, we lost two more August mothers, for a total of 18 losses so far. One of the women was 4 days ahead of me and it just really hit home as to where I am in my pregnancy right now. I lost my first baby at 12 weeks three days, just 3 days from now. I can't imagine finding out now that our baby wasn't going to make it. I'm so in love with this child already, it's simply impossible to imagine getting past another late first trimester loss. Sometimes I still don't know how I've moved on from those losses. Time really is the only thing. I can't believe it's almost been 2 years since I lost my first baby.

The good news is this pregnancy has been completely different right from the start of either of my previous two. I'm still sick at 12 weeks, despite taking medication, for which I am extremely grateful for. I haven't had any spotting and did with both of my prior pregnancies. And the best part of all is I have my own doppler so that I can check in on my baby daily. With out that peace of mind I don't know how I'd be doing right now.

So I'm trying to just keep everything in perspective. Does it suck to be sick and throw up? Yes. Is it worth it? Absolutely. That wonderful, albeit awful, reassurance has been very helpful in easing my fears. I know that there are much worse things than being tired and sick all the time, especially since it's all for a very wonderful reason.

I'm wearing maternity clothes now, I wouldn't say that I'm totally showing yet, but my old pants no longer fit. I've actually lost about 4 lbs so far this pregnancy, so I know it's all baby poking out and not fat! For which I am also very grateful.

Kolt and I have started picking out nursery furniture and decor. We won't be buying any for quite a while, but it's nice to have it planned out. We also have our car seat picked out, it's a Recaro car seat. For those of you who don't know (which I assume is all of you) Recaro manufactures racing seats for race cars, they just happen to make baby seats as well. Kolt wants nothing but the best for our little one, and so it will be the coolest kid on the block riding around in a black and red Recaro seat. Kolt wants to get the little peanut started out in their racing future as soon as he can.

Over all things are going very well, this is just kind of a scary week for me but I'm hoping to get past it and move on to the second trimester. Hopefully soon I'll be feeling the baby kick, which is an experience I've dreamt of and longed for my whole adult life. I feel so grateful to be pregnant and to so far not have had any complications. I love this child so much and can't wait to meet them!

So Happy to Write this Post

Yes, those are pictures of our beautiful baby!! We are having a baby on August 20th of this year. We weren't really planning on this, it just kind of happened, but the timing truly couldn't be more perfect and I'm so grateful to be having this baby.

As of today I am 11 weeks and 3 days pregnant. Morning sickness, aka ALL DAY sickness, has been in full effect since 5.5 weeks. I've been taking medication to help with it and it has been a life saver. I tried to come off of it yesterday since I had been feeling so well, alas, I'm not ready yet. So on it I will stay for the time being.

I have had 3 ultrasounds and all of them have gone beautifully. So it really does look like we'll get to be parents at the end of this pregnancy. I bought a fetal heart rate monitor and was able to find the heart rate at home on Saturday for the first time, holding steady at 165 bpm. It is the most wonderful thing I have ever heard.

The reason I haven't posted in so long is because I couldn't reveal this surprise yet and didn't trust myself to talk about anything else. The last two months have pretty much consisted of me throwing up and sleeping, not very exciting!

We are really happy to be getting some visitors soon! Kolt's whole family will be coming to visit on the 10th of March. I am counting down the days until they get here and know that we will have such a blast. There will be a lot of pictures from that week I'm sure and I will be sure to post some.

I don't think this announcement comes as a surprise to any of my readers as I think I'm friends with everyone on facebook, but this is by far the best post I've ever made!!