A Very Good Day

I finally told my mentor at school that I was pregnant. Actually what I told her was that there must be something in the water at this school (that only works because one of the girls that works with her at Wesleyan just had a baby). She looked at me for a second, said, "Your pregnant" with a smile and gave me a hug. I'm so grateful. I knew she'd be great about it, but for some reason I was still a little nervous to tell her. She is such a great person/mentor, I'm so lucky. OK, also, for those of you who are planning to have children/more children someday, I just found a great website. I'm not sure how many people know about this site, but it's called babyfit.com. If you're worried that you aren't getting enough protein, calcium, foliate, calories, or iron, you type in what you ate for the day and it calculates it all for you. It's great, you never have to wonder. It even has daily meal plans if you want, they assure that you get all the nutrients you need from your food and that you eat well. It will also make a weekly exercises routine for you if you'd like with a variety of exercises so you don't get bored. It, of course, has your personalized calendar that tells you what's going on with you and the baby, articles and tutorials, and if that's not enough the more you use it the more money they donate to March of Dimes. OK, I'll get off my soapbox now and explain the photos below. Over fathers day my fathers family had there every other year reunion, which was a blast, but very hot as it was 95 degrees. The first picture is of my immediate family, there were 2nd cousins and 1st cousins once removed there as well, but not in that picture, in fafct only about 3/4 of my family made it this year. The reunions are a really big deal for us, so it was really nice. Babies first family reunion. Also, for those of you who have heard me talk about my nieces, you know I'm absolutely obsessed with them. The 2 pictures after the family reunion picture are my nieces with my sister-in-law, who just graduated from high school on June 21st. For those of you who graduated with me, that was 10 years to the day that we all graduated. Scary isn't, how time does fly. We're so proud of her. She's off to Avery point and then Uconn after that. Maybe she'll be the first of her family to get a college degree. We wish her the best, and some fun while she's at it.

It worked

For some reason I was having trouble getting these photos up yesterday.

New Pictures

18 Weeks - Look at that belly

Waiting

Hi everyone,
Sorry it's been so long since my last post. There hasn't been much going on lately and I find that I am just waiting. I've been told that I can expect to start feeling the baby move in the next two or three weeks, which I am of course now constantly searching for. Poor Kristin, I keep saying to her, "Well, I felt something that felt like this.......Could it be the baby." She's been so good about it. She keeps assuring me that I'll know when I feel it. Actually I should mention, everyone has been soo wonderful. Thank you all for your support. Shawn and Kelly were the first to offer cloths and books, which have already come in handy. They're also so encouraging and have been great about keeping up with my progress. Thanks guys, it's so nice to know you're there. Tiffani has also been following along and being very encouraging. You've sent so many comments that I really want to respond to and will once I get your e-mail from my wonderful husband!!!! I'm really glad you like the pictures, I know I'll be really grateful to have them to look back on. The funniest thing is that Dan and I had been talking about the fact that you had New England babies and my first is a Texas baby before I got your comment. I just wanted to be able to tell you that. Kristin has been so wonderful, she gave me all of her maternity close, which is such a help, and is constantly answering my questions, which is even better. My friends and family have been great and VERY interested (Karra), which is fun. OK, so I could obviously go on forever. Thank you all for keeping up with my cite and sending all of your comments. You guys are great. OK, so we have our next routine apt. on the 7th. And then as long as the baby cooperates we'll hopefully accurately find out the sex of the baby on the 20th. Good luck to us. I promise not to wait so long to write again.

Look at that happy dad. He's so charming and funny. I've recently come to know that some people like to hear what dad's take is on the experience. OK well, hi everyone. It's me, the belly shot photographer. It's kind of cool watching my wife's body go through these changes. Even though they're expected changes, it's still neet to see. Steph wants me to conversate with her belly a lot and I do my best to oblidge. But everytime I try to talk, Steph ends up having fits of laughter. Dad's voice will only be associated with laughter at this rate. That might put me at a disadvantage down the line somewhere. I'm just glad that the baby gets to hear me, that way we won't be total strangers when we eventually see eachother. I try to do as much as I can for my pregnant wife. Seeing her get bigger makes me attentive and obedient, but proud at the same time. I wasn't sure how Steph would be through the pregnancy, but she's been a lot calmer and normal than I expected. So everythings going even better than I expected.

Good News

Today I went for the first part of the newest form of genetic testing they do on babies now (by new, I mean insurance didn't pay for it last year and they do this year!!). They gather an odds ratio on the babies chances of having neural tube defects or down syndrome through visual markers on the baby (thus the new pictures) and through testing certain proteins in the blood. Using just the visual part of the test, the doctor felt that things look really good. All of the things they wanted to see were there (including 2 arms and 2 legs - which was a beautiful thing for me to see) and the markers that would indicate a problem were as minimal as possible. While this is not 100%, things at this point look good, so this has been a wonderful day. I got to hear the heart beat again, a good strong 160 BPM, and I also got to see the baby moving around. Apparently we woke the baby up with the prodding and poking of the ultrasound. He/She started kicking and stretching and then flipped over, it was so cool, I wish Dan had been there, he's currently in Colorado. Also, I was wrong about the end of the first trimester date, we are into the second trimester now, I can breath a little easier. I am also losing confidence that it's a girl. Looking at it today on the ultrasound I don't get the same feeling. I have no idea, so, we'll just leave it at, I don't know what this baby is and I will be ecstatic which ever we get. Once Dan gets back I'll put up another belly picture, I know we're overdue. Thank you so much for all of your love and support.

Latest Pictures

I didn't think we were going to get to see the

baby again until the 20th week, but ....

A bet

OK, I think it's a bit delayed but, apparently moody and emotional have arrived. I got a little cranky this past weekend. I'm not sure if it was just a bit of a hot topic for me or if I'm really getting moody. We'll see, but I definitely get cranky when I'm hungry... sorry everyone and I am now crying over the end of homeward bound. Yeah, umm, ok this should be interesting. I guess Dan has had it pretty easy up until now. So, now for the title of this post. I think this baby is going to be a girl. I've been occasionally calling it she and I had a very vivid dream about "her" the other night. I dreamed that she was born at 20 weeks at a full term weight, hight, and development with big blue eyes. However, since she was born early I didn't have anything. Anyway, it was a funny/odd dream. All I know is I need to be careful because I've really started thinking of the baby as a girl and if it's not, we might have some problems, I guess we'll find out in 9 weeks.

P.S. The Chinese lunar calender says it's a boy!!!!!

Macaroni and Cheese Please!!

Well apparently I’m having a macaroni and cheese/California roll loving baby. I have eaten macaroni and cheese for the last 3 days in a row. For those of you who are very health conscious, it’s homemade mac and cheese, I don’t do the boxed stuff. Anyway, I understand why, I’m starting to need a lot more calcium. It’s just a good thing I don’t mind eating the same thing over and over again. OK, the end of the first trimester is May 28th, so everyone keep us in your thoughts.

First Doctors Appt.

Oh my god, how amazing is a baby’s heartbeat. Let me just say that it is the most beautiful sound I've ever heard in my life, and yes, I did cry. The heartbeat was 160 beats/minute, which is good I’m told. The baby looks size wise right where it’s supposed to be. So, so far so good, the due date is now officially November 27th. Please, please don’t come on Thanksgiving, I really want to eat that day. So, how much do you want to bet this baby will come on Thanksgiving. OK, so as promised, baby pictures and belly pictures (well a belly picture). Sorry to disappoint, but I think it’s all still just fat at this point, well like I said, a little growth, but mostly fat.

8 week belly

I'm standing on my head, just so you can find me

8 week 2 day baby

Not much happening

As everyone who has already experienced pregnancy knows, there’s still not much happening here. I can tell the difference in my waist, it’s getting thicker, my cloths are getting a little tighter, and my stomach is getting harder. I’m still hiding it well though, not that I thought I would get big quickly, but it’s good because I still haven’t told my advisor (or anyone else really for that matter). I’m pretty sure she’ll be fine about it, she’s really nice and I really like working with her a lot, but I am a little worried. Oh well, what can you do. I can’t wait until the 19th, I want to hear this baby so badly. I’m so excited for the heartbeat. I know I won’t be able to see much, but I’ve heard you can actually see the heart beating which I think is so amazing. OK, I’ll try to get recent photos of my not so protruding belly and baby pictures as soon as I have them.

We still haven’t really told anyone that we are pregnant yet, so I’m hoping people won’t stumble across this page yet. I know I shouldn’t have created it yet just for that reason, but I couldn’t resist. If you do happen to find this I’m really sorry and we are going to tell you so please don’t tell anyone until we call you.

Joining the ranks

Well, apparently I've officially joined the ranks of soon to be moms. Dan and I had actually been trying to get pregnant around Aug./Sept/Oct. so we would have a baby over the summer while I'm on summer break. However, that obviously didn't happen and we stopped trying. I was thinking about trying again in late February, but Dan's job sent him down to Texas and as we all know, it does takes two. I did however end up visiting him in early march, which I thought was too late to try, if you know what I mean. Well, apparently I don't actually have a clue how to calculate these things. So, unbeknownst to myself, I didn't leave Texas alone, in fact I won't be alone again for 9 more months. Nine days passed after returning from Texas and my "friend" didn't show, which is about the time I started to suspect something wasn't quite right. Took me long enough I guess. I took a pregnancy test...nothing. So I waited 2 days and took another, still negative. At this point I'm starting to get worried that there may actually be something wrong with me. So the next morning I decided I'd try again and if the test was still negative I would freak out and go to the doctors. Well, this time it was positive and I freaked out (in a very good ecstatic way) and went to the doctors. As of today I am officially in my sixth week and the "baby" (even though it hasn't officially earned that title yet) + yolk is supposedly the size of an M&M, I love how they always compare developing fetuses to food. Right now I feeling really good, which I'm grateful for. I actually still have energy, I'm only slightly nauseous if I don't have food in my stomach, and there are many moments when I don't really feel pregnant. I have another doctor’s appointment on April 19th so I'll be able to put the baby’s first pictures up after that. But I probably won't write again until then. I want to thank Kelly Hobbs for the idea of creating this blogg (I know Melissa did it first, but..). I enjoy being able to get updates on Shawn and Kelly’s pregnancy (and now baby pictures and video) even when I'm running around too crazy to catch up with them and hope this site works the same way for my friends. So, let the journey begin.