Tasty Tuesday...18 Weeks!!

Baby's now the size of a sweet potato!
Baby's become amazingly mobile (compared to you, at least), passing the hours yawning, hiccupping, rolling, twisting, kicking, punching, sucking, and swallowing. And baby is finally big enough that you'll soon be able to feel her movements.

I love sweet potatoes!! And not to mention this one is extra sweet, I can just tell ;). Hard to believe it is already over 5 1/2 inches!! I had someone at work today say, "wow you are really starting to look pregnant.".and then quickly followed by "you are so cute pregnant, all belly". Thank you Lord for giving that person the knowledge to follow with that comment. Otherwise I may have started crying as I am super emotional right now. Must be a big increase of hormones this week!

In other news my family is all in town for the holidays so I am LOVING every single second with them. But as I mentioned how I am extra emotional right now, I got teary eyed this morning thinking that Christmas is almost over which means my family will be leaving before I know it. Who does that, gets upset about someone leaving right when they get there?! I won't be posting any until after the holidays as I will be with family, but I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and the most blessed holiday yet..I know ours is!

The Blissful Sound of the Heart Beat!

Today I had my 17 week check up! Even though most women say it is nothing special and just a normal check up, I. Love. Them. I countdown until each appointment and get so excited the day of and find myself counting down the hours like my students are currently doing for Christmas! And after the brief 10 minute appointment my countdown starts all over again. It is funny, before this experience I would go to the doctor (fertility specialist) any where from 2 times a month to 4 times a month and let me tell you, I hated it! But now I highlight and put stars around my appointment date and time! I think this all because each time I am able to hear the heartbeat I feel that much closer to Baby B and I feel like there really is a living baby in my belly! It feels like a special bond..as if I am saying "hi, I hear you and I love you and am SO happy you are growing big and strong" and the baby is saying "hi mom, I am here heart beating away and growing!".

Not to mention, I love my Dr. He is the best! He makes me laugh and puts me at ease and somehow has a way of making me feel like I am his first and only pregnant patient. He makes me feel special and seems so excited for us, even though he deals with pregnant ladies all day long. And I think he is starting to get my personality too...after all he did laugh at me when I told him I electricuted myself on the Christmas lights and was worried. No worries, Baby B is good to go, Dr. said his/her hair may just be standing up a little ;).

Any ways, over all I just love each and every time I go to the Dr. He is great and feeling closer to our baby is even greater! Baby Brown had a strong heart beat this time of 154 bpm!

So now the countdown starts til the next appointment...3 weeks and counting! And I will probably be over the moon anxious and excited for this one as it is "the Big" ultrasound!!

Tasty Tuesday....17 weeks!

Baby's now the size of an onion!
Baby's skeleton is hardening, changing from rubbery cartilage to bone, and fat is finally accumulating around it. His umbilical cord is getting thicker and stronger, and those little fingers and toes now feature one-of-a-kind prints.

Ok so I am not much of an onion lover, but since I have been pregnant I actually do not mind them. Meaning I no longer pick them out or completely eliminate them from recipes...I just may cut what the recipe calls for in half now, or pick just some off of the food instead of all! So no it is not as tasty or cute of a food but Baby B, I love to the moon and back a million times over even if you do resemble an onion for a week!

I go to the Dr. tomorrow for a quick check up! I count down to these days starting from the last Dr. apt. to the next one! I am so excited for tomorrow. Not for the weighing part or talking to the nurses, but just to hear my sweet little onions heart beat racing away! It is pure music to the ears and I could lay there forever and listen to it forever! Update from Dr. to come tomorrow! :)

It's the busy, busiest season of all!

We have been very busy the past few weekends which is making December go by like the blink of an eye. Which only gets me thinking that after the holidays and New Year, from January to May will also be a blur! I know it was that way after the holidays until our wedding. Which brings me to the fact that I am starting to get...um, what do they call it..the "nesting" itch?! I have come up with a to do list about a mile long that I want to get done (or that Chris needs to get done) before Baby B, and all of a sudden, yes even though there is 5 months left, to get it done asap! There was the holiday rush with all the typical to do's but this year I felt more domesticated and determined to get our home spic and span and ready for guests. This includes more cleaning, more decorating and more baking. 8 hours of baking 10 different kinds of cookies with friends to be exact! And when I say friends, I mean 3 dear friends who endured the weather to come to my annual cookie party. Everyone else (rightfully so!) declined due to the icy, snowy mess that occurred ALL. DAY. But it made for a beautiful, magical and special day of music, cookies and good times..oh and sparkling cider for me! :) I also went all out with decorations, and our 12 foot tree! Not an inch does not feel like Christmas. I just love our house this time of year. Every night we have been lighting up our house, lighting candles and the fire place and just drinking it all in...it truly feels so magical this year. The snow does not hurt either! I also have decided to try my creative hand with artsy touches and gifts...notice I said "try". Now, my Christmas to do list is dwindling, however there is still a lot to do before all of our guests start arriving this weekend!

Which now brings me to what we refer to as "baby do list". Which most of it is on Chris, but I am trying to help as much as possible! It is a lot of organizing, building new shelving for our closet, painting and simple tasks like that...just time consuming. I am proud to say we have 3 crossed off. With the latest being the daunting task for my sweet husband of painting our bedroom! Now our bedroom is large. It is a big room and the walls are tall and its all topped off with a trade ceiling. So it took Chris about 8 hours to do it all...but he did an AMAZING job! It looks awesome and I am so excited! Pictures to come soon! Our next item on the list is to start the nursery which Chris plans on painting the week after Christmas since he is off all the same days I am! We have bedding and plans for the room, so I am thrilled and so anxious to start! Pictures also to come soon!

So between Christmas to do lists, Baby to do lists and my itch to clean clean clean and chip away at our lists and just nest we have managed to squeeze in some dinners with friends, parties and a wedding. Above is our Christmas picture and then a picture of us at a wedding we attended last weekend. Which can I just note that now I understand why people say weddings are not as much fun for moms to be?! Lets just say I did not do much dancing and I was tired before the bouquet was even tossed!

But all in all, it has been the perfect holiday season with many new memories and so much to be thankful for!

What a VERY special Christmas this will be!! I have been bit by the Christmas spirit bug..in more ways than 1!

Not sure if it is the snow on the ground (and freeezing weather!), the lights that light up our neighborhood, our decorations that are up, the music and holiday candles that fills our home, or the fact that Baby Brown has already made this Christmas more special than any other in the past..but we have the Christmas spirit! We have something to be extra thankful for this year and something to celebrate and warm our hearts more than ever..and I know that feeling will only grow each year! To mark this special Christmas we got these cute "parents to be 2010" and sonogram ornament!

Here are just some of the decorations. We have garland that fills the stairs, 2 fake trees (1 is Chris's tree in the bar room which is not done yet) and 1 is my "fancy" tree in the dining room and then 1 real tree in our living room which is our family tree! Lights fill the outside of our home and little decorations are able to be seen everywhere! I just love this time of year! I feel like our home is full of extra love and warmth!

Our 12 foot real tree!!

My tree

Stockings are hung waiting for Santa...although our greatest gift came to us in September!

Not only do we have Baby Brown to celebrate this holiday season but this will also be our first Christmas in our home..so many new memories to make this year! Last year we moved in right before Thanksgiving so we did not do much decorating and we left to go to GA for the holiday. So we had a lot of fun decorating this year and can already tell it is going to be special. And if that was not exciting enough, we will have a full home for Christmas! We will be spending the holidays with Chris's family and his extended family that lives in town but also with my family! We could not picture a better Christmas surrounded by the people we love most. My parents, Kevin and Meryl and my grandma will get into town around the 19th! It will be a very memorable holiday this year and I absolutely can not wait! Now if I could just kick this cold! I have discovered being pregnant adds a whole new element to being sick. Not only can you not take meds but your body just does not have the energy or immune system to fight it. I finally took a day to rest today after feeling sick for a week, so hopefully this will give my body the boost it needs! Many more pictures and blissful stories to come this holiday season! Hope your holiday season is off to a great start too!

The First Official Blissful Baby Bump Pictures!

Yes friends here they are...the first "bump" pictures! We have been taking pictures every 4 weeks. I take some and so does Chris. There is more to know about these pictures. Read below! But this first picture was taken this morning, 16 weeks. Yes I find morning is best to take them! ;)
16 Weeks!
12 weeks!

8 Weeks!

Now, the ever changing body is for a post of its own, but we have been taking pictures of my "bump" every 4 weeks starting at 8 weeks. And just for a little justification...my 8 week bump pictures look bigger than my 12 because after the fertility drugs we used, my ovaries and uterus were left extremely swollen and bloated (due to so many eggs, again this all is to follow in another post). So I like think I was skinnier before the treatments and we were warned by my nurses that I would be bloated and swollen and that people that use these drugs often show earlier than normal pregnancies. So please no "are you sure there is just 1" comments! It seems that in the past week or so I have shown more, and the baby is getting ready for a growth spurt according to books...lets hope the gym can help mom's "growth spurts"!

Tasty Tuesday.....16 weeks!

Baby's now the size of an avocado!
Watch what you say...tiny bones forming in baby's ears mean she can now pick up your voice. A few more minuscule changes: Eyebrows, lashes, and hair are starting to fill in, and taste buds are forming.

Have I mentioned how much I love Tuesdays?! And I love avocados! Not only are they yummy and healthy (good for your hair too) but can I just say this picture makes me want some guacamole! No, not as much as juice though! Lucky me, tomorrow I get to go enjoy some guacamole with one of my best friends, momma Perks! Some one who is dear to me and someone who is already (and always will be) dear to Baby Brown as well...she is Baby B's surrogate aunt after all!

Looking past the food part, can I just say how over the roof I am about Baby B being able to hear our voices? This is a milestone I have been waiting for since I found out there was a little bambino! So maybe I should invest now in a shirt that says "no, I am not crazy and talking to myself...just to my baby that is in utero!" I doubt they make crazy shirts for crazy people like me, but come on people, you can't tell me there isn't something magical about the fact your baby that is soon to be in your arms hearing your voice. And anyone who knows me knows that Christmas music is my all time favorite ( I start listening in October!) so the fact Baby B can share in this joyous part of the holiday season makes this holiday that much more special. With all the stimulation of noise coming from my classroom, Chris and I, and even Layla..I hope this gets Baby B moving enough in the near future for me to feel his/her little love movements! Now, Chris and I have been talking to the baby since day 1, but I can promise it will be a lot more now and yes the teacher part of me may even come out in the later weeks and I may read to him/her. So get ready to hear all of our dreams for you Baby Brown...and please do not take all that your dad says seriously! And we are so proud of the way you are growing so fast and working hard at developing each week and we are getting more and more excited to meet you!

Chris took week 16 bump pictures this morning..I will post them later today or tomorrow!

Tasty Tuesday...15 Weeks!!

Baby Brown is 15 weeks! Hard to believe!! And it is only suiting he/she is an orange as ALL I crave is juice, juice and juice (and fruit!) I look forward to EVERY Tuesday to read up on Baby B's developments. First thing Chris and I do when we wake up is open up our computer and search our favorite baby websites! Crazy how much he/she grows each week and how much he/she develops each week! Crazy to think 2 weeks ago Baby B was only 1 oz and it has more than doubled now in weight and length in 2 weeks...what does that mean for my weight for the future?! I feel like the first 10 were SLOW and we found out when I was about 4 1/2 weeks. But these past 5 weeks have flown! Maybe it is due to me being more relaxed, or the fact that I am enjoying pregnancy a lot more now, or even the fact that it is holiday season. Although I am anxious for May to arrive, I know it will be January very fast with the Christmas hustle approaching; and after January time will only pick up. I know this because I remember the year we got married January until May was a blur! So although time will pass fast, Baby Brown has alot of growing to do and mom and dad to be have a lot of prepping to do..so it's okay time, take YOUR time! Happy Tuesday y'all!

Baby's now the size of a naval orange!
Continuing the march toward normal proportions, baby's legs now out-measure his arms. And, finally, all four limbs have functional joints. Your fetus is squirming and wiggling like crazy down in the womb, though you probably can't feel the movements just yet.

The pure Bliss in ultrasound pictures!!

10 and 11 week shots! Hello baby Brown! 6 and 8 week u/s above and 10 week u/s below!

These are also 8 weeks!

Ok the top right on the first ultrasound pictures is baby at 6 weeks (it is a dot if you can see that small!) and the other are 8 weeks!

Ok, so I thought I would post some ultrasound pictures as I was given a hard time at home over Thanksgiving for not bringing any with me. After all, we have been blessed enough to see Baby Brown 4 times already! Because we saw a fertility specialist they did more for us and I had some unusual aches and pains so they brought me in just for procaution one time. Now, I have to mention we thought at first there could be twins because my blood levels were more than doubling (okay they were tripling!). So each and every ultrasound Chris has made sure there is just 1 baby! Our Dr. did have some fun with him though. I had alot of cysts left over from our treatments and so early on you could see them, they looked like tiny sacs. So the Dr. told Chris "Oh my gosh, look at those sacs, there are 5 babies in there!" He found it funny after he heard "just kidding"! He said he would have been happy but he was too busy calculating college funds! It is amazing to see how fast these little miracles of life grow! At 6 weeks you can not see anyting but a dot..but boy did we hear the heart loud and clear at 108 bpm! Then at 8 weeks it more than doubled in size and the heart rate was 159 bmp! Next came 10 week ultrasound with our regular OB (who also deserves his own post along with our other Dr.) and the baby more than doubled! He even gave us a 3D picture and you could see the little bean waving his/her arms and you could see toes and fingers! THe heart rate at 10 weeks was 161 bpm! Finally we had one at 11 weeks and yet Baby Brown continued to grow and the heart rate continued to increase to 169 bpm! Now some people say that is a high heart rate, but I am not sure if it was high due to baby or due to mom! I was a nervous, hot mess before each Dr. appointment. I was convinced this all was too good to be true and something was bound to go wrong..I know, such a optimist! In fact, I literally made myself sick throughout the day of each of my ultrasounds. Chris had to hold my hand just to get me to stop shaking! And at one appointment, the nurse had me lay down for 5 minutes because my heart rate was 180/90 and she was afraid I would have a heart attack! Well, it is better now and I do not "freak" out anymore! Whew! Call me crazy, but I just could not help my nerves! The last u/s was at 11 weeks so I can only imagine (well just view any expecting website to find the answer) how big the baby is now! Tasty Tuesday Fruit post to come tomorrow!

A recap of the past 14 weeks!

So, I have decided to enter the cyber world of blogging! I am going to guess that no one will read this, and that I may not even be that great of keeping up with it (or for that fact even a good writer)...BUT I am going to attempt to document this exciting time in our lives! I have started a scrap book of all ultrasound pictures, baby bump pictures, memorabilia and anything else that can go in a scrap book, however, I need a place to also document my crazy emotions, excitements and dreams for Baby Brown!
So if you are reading this by chance then yes you probably already knew, or can guess that Chris and I are expecting our first child this May!! We could not be more excited or thrilled to welcome our new baby into our family! It was a long and tough journey to Baby Brown (one I will share eventually but am not quite ready to yet) but I would not trade one tear, one heart ache or one treatment for this miracle to have happened exactly when it did..yes, I would do it ALL over again! Because it was a long journey to baby Brown, we feel more excited, appreciative and full of "bliss" than we ever have before! It has made this baby and this entire experience that much more special.
Speaking of this experience, pregnancy, has finally hit the "honeymoon" phase! Because I am already almost 15 weeks (Tuesday to be exact) I will quickly sum up the past 14 weeks.
NEVER have I..... (these are all BLISSFUL never's)
~ felt more exhausted...Chris is happy to have conscience wife now and one that is not a zombie!
~ hated food SO much! I never got sick, but I found myself dry heaving to the porcelain Gods and hating every single piece of food except for my latest craving (see below!) I even hated cheese (which is SO not me!). Chris is happy now to have a wife that likes to cook again and one who won't make him eat dinner in the other room or throw away dinner!
~ been more emotional/moody. I can cry with the best of them for no reason (or at commercials) and want to bite someones head off all at the same time. Again, sorry to my dear husband who has embraced all of this!
~been more forgetful or spacey. Yes, those of you who do know me know that this is typically a norm for me, but I feel (with all my other feelings) this is intensified
~ witnessed more changes with my body (visible and not visible) within such a short period of time..I won't share ANY more, those that have been preggo before know what I am talking about!
~ used the bathroom so much! I use to be able to go the entire day without going, but yet I go all the time now!
~ driven more careful or felt more protective/worried for a life I am in charge of
~craved fruit or fruit juice as much as I do now. I go through a gallon a week!
~ felt more excited and blessed..words can not describe my happiness, feeling of joy and appreciation right now
~ been more in love with my husband..he deserves an entire post which is soon to come, but lets just say he is my rock!

That about sums it up. And after taking the road it took to get here I have loved every second of being pregnant...even the nauseated, exhausted and moody moments! These past almost 15 weeks have been filled with excitement and joy as we have had 4 ultrasounds (pictures and explanations to come later!), celebrations with friends and family (my students included, their reactions to come later too!), nights of laying in bed for hours looking at name books and dreaming of our little bambino and everything we want for him/her, and everything in between. Although I am not officially a "mom" yet, I find myself so in love with someone I have yet to meet and already so protective/worrisome for this little being that already fills our lives with love. I would say this miracle has changed our lives already for the better and we can not wait to see what is to come.

I am excited to enjoy every minute of this pregnancy and I hope this is a place where I can reflect and share it with you. Bump pictures and updates to come! I promise the rest of my posts will not be this long (or I will try!).