The Moment We've Been Waiting For....

I'M PREGNANT!!!!!!!! Gosh, it feels so good to finally be able to talk about it to people! Finally, when I meet people and they ask if we have kids, I can finally say, "Not yet, but we have one on the way!"

So I am due May 7th, 2014 and that makes me just over 13 weeks along right now (14 weeks on Wednesday! Hello second trimester!). Looks like we are going to be having a baby just a few short weeks before Matthew has finals to finish up his first year of medical school! Haha good news is, we'll be able to come to Utah for hopefully a pretty decent chunk of time over the summer while I am on my maternity leave from work!

Anyway, back to the past... As most of you know, Matthew and I had been trying for quite some time. Just over a year when all was said and done. I was obviously hoping I was pregnant, but I didn't really FEEL pregnant the way I thought I would, so I just waited for my period to start. Well... It ended up that the day my period was supposed to come came and went and nothing happened. I figured it would just be late and I didn't test until I was about 4 or 5 days late. I had bought a pregnancy test the night before and I woke up Sunday morning to take it. I was shaking SO bad and I couldn't even look at it for the longest time. I just stared at the ground trying to tell myself to expect it to be negative so I wouldn't be disappointed if it was. Well... I finally got up the courage to look and there they were! Clear as day, 2 wonderful, pink lines! I immediately burst into tears. I didn't know how to feel, to be honest with you. I was SO happy, but at the same time after what happened last time, I was SO nervous!! So I sat there for a little while, let myself have a moment and then decided I needed to tell Matthew NOW! Unfortunately, Matthew was still asleep and was getting sick, but I went against my better judgment and woke him up waving a pregnancy test in his face. Haha I should have known better, I did that to him last time too! He gets mad because he doesn't react the way he'd like to but... I didn't take it personally. I told myself I was going to surprise him this time but... when it came down to it, there was no time for that! I needed him to know RIGHT THEN! :) Oops! Maybe next time..

Well... I have been super blessed this time. I researched all of the doctors my insurance covered and tried to make the best decision for me and baby. I LOVED my doctor in Logan, and I knew I was going to have a hard time finding someone else I liked as much. Well... I made a decision and I went with Dr. Boling. He came highly recommended from a lot of med students who rotated with/shadowed him and from wives as well. I knew I wasn't going to be able to wait until 10.5 weeks again, so I called knowing I was going to ask if I could come in sometime around 8 weeks just for peace of mind if nothing else. Well... when I called to make the appointment, his nurse told me that he sees patients for the first time between 6-7 weeks along. I was SO relieved!

Well, the day for the first appointment came. I had still been feeling nauseous and everything, so I decided to take that as a good sign and I went into the appointment hopeful. Gosh, I don't know what my problem is, but I feel like I have a problem. Every time I go into a doctor's office or anywhere knowing I'm going to be getting an ultrasound, I just kind of make myself sick and freak out. I start shaking and I just get really fidgety and nervous. Matthew tried his best to make me chill, but of course it didn't work. Dr. Boling came in and luckily said we would do the ultrasound very first thing. I was only 6.5 weeks along, so I was scared he wouldn't be able to see anything and it would just worry me more. Well... the ultrasound started and after only about 10 seconds or less he said "Yep, there's the heartbeat, do you see that?" I got a huge sense of relief. I knew we weren't completely in the clear, but it was better than the last time (worst case scenario). Matt saw the heartbeat about as fast as Dr. Boling did, but I had to make them point it out to me. It was really cool. He then did the measurements and everything and it was measuring like 2 days behind or something, but that is a non-issue that early on. He told me everything looked good, but that he wanted me to come back in a week and a half for another ultrasound to track the growth. He said there wasn't really any "medical necessity", so to speak, for another ultrasound, but he wanted to do it mainly for my peace of mind since I had had a previous miscarriage. I was SO grateful for that!

6 week ultrasound! It's SO tiny, you can't even see anything! But we saw a heartbeat and that's all that matters. :)

Ultrasound #2 went great as well! Strong heartbeat, right amount of growth, and everything looked as good as expected! I still got just as nervous for that one, but that's just because, like I said, I have a problem.

8 week ultrasound. It was crazy to see how much the little one grew! It basically tripled in size, which was great!

Our second ultrasound actually came during Matthew's fall break, so his parents were out here visiting (I still have a draft of that post sitting out there waiting to be finished... Oops!). We decided that even though we were still early, we wanted to take advantage of being able to tell SOME family in person! As we were cleaning the house, getting ready for them to come over, Matthew made a comment about needing to organize the office. I have been DREADING putting that office together... So I made the comment, "No, I'm not going to put any effort towards that office, we're just going to move it downstairs and change that to a nursery anyway!". Haha so that's where we came up with the idea of how to announce (and when I say "we", I mean Matthew, the creative one. haha). When Matthew's mom walked around our house to have a "tour" of it, this was on our office door upstairs:

Matthew bought everything from Walmart, and he liked the cones the most, so I had to make sure I got a picture of them too. :)

Then whenever I announced it to anyone else, I usually just sent them one of those pictures as well. I called my mom "just to chat" like I always do. I told her that we had actually "remodeled" our office and that I would send her a picture of it and I sent her that picture while we were still talking. Luckily, she got it right away, so she opened it and was so excited! She did call me "a little trick" though. It was so fun to tell our families! We had said earlier that we were going to wait much longer to tell our families this time (like until I was out of the first trimester), but once it came down to it, we decided that we wanted to tell our families and the support if anything goes wrong is always great. We obviously felt better about getting a heartbeat and correct growth on both of our ultrasounds.

Another fun thing is that my husband is in medical school, so we get to see the baby a little more often than usual! He had to practice ultrasound before a test one day, so I went in for him to practice on me. He was finding the heart, some veins and arteries, and various organs, but after he was done with that we took a quick peek at the baby! I was just over 10 weeks along, and I couldn't believe how developed the little thing was! It was moving around like crazy too, which was SO cool for me to see. I was on a high after seeing it that time.

That was the last time I actually saw our baby, but I had an appointment at 12 weeks again and we found the heartbeat on a Doppler, which was an entirely different experience from an ultrasound. Once again, I was freaking out and holding my breath probably the entire time until Dr. Boling found the heart beat. It took a little bit longer than I thought it would, which freaked me out, but it turns out he was just having to chase the little thing around because it kept running away. There were so many weird noises coming out of that thing, I wasn't sure what I was hearing. Haha finally Dr. Boling stopped and smiled and said "do you hear that?" I said "yeah...", but I really had no idea what he was talking about. Haha then I heard it, and I just had to realize that it wasn't the sound I was waiting for. It was a ton faster than I thought it was going to be, but it was really cool!

Everything has been pretty good. I have been nauseous a lot, but I have only thrown up once (brushing my teeth, of course!). I actually was glad to feel sick, because to me it meant I was still pregnant! Just kind of a not-so-friendly reminder! :) I am starting to get chubby, so I guess you can say I'm "showing", but it's still more bloat than baby.. haha I have experienced heartburn for the first time the past couple of days. I'm pretty sure it's heartburn, at least. I had to google what it feels like to see if that's what I was feeling. Haha But all is well!

Well, I should wrap it up, but I'll finish with one more funny story. For my birthday, I told Matthew all I wanted was to go to Columbia to go shopping. My birthday was on a Friday, so on Saturday we headed out for Columbia. I was in heaven! We started off eating at Five Guys, which was so delicious, and then we headed to the mall. I was going in to all of my favorite stores and realized I wasn't going to buy anything because I would just grow out of it in a little while. So after a few stores, we decided to head to Motherhood Maternity instead. I actually liked that store! :) So I tried on and bought a few things to get my collection started for when I grew out of all of my clothes. Well, in Motherhood Maternity they have those velcro bellies you can put on to test out if the shirts will be long enough when your tummy grows. So I put on one of those and came walking out of the dressing room and asked Matthew how he liked that shirt. He looked up and did a double take and was like "holy crap!" Haha it was way funny.

Here's the picture. I look like crap, but it's still freaky to see myself with a pregnant belly!

Well, that's all, folks! My next appointment is at 16 weeks and I can't. Wish me luck! Here's to a happy and healthy pregnancy! :)