15 weeks

Wearing a maternity shirt here... So comfy! And I think it helps emphasize a bump and not just a belly, lol. I am still in that in between stage where depending on what I wear, I either look a little pregnant or a little too many donuts.

How far along: 15 weeks 3 days

Size of baby:  Avocado!

Maternity clothes: The transition has begun! I now have a pair of maternity jeans, a couple skirts, and a couple shirts. The shirts are so comfortable and soft and while I can still get away with a lot of pre-pregnancy clothes, it's kind of fun to know I'm wearing maternity outfits too. :)

Gender: to be determined...July 1 can't get here fast enough!

Movement: Definite flutters. I feel them when I'm still or laying down.

Sleep: Meh. Although on Monday, Michael and I slept until 11 am and it was GLORIOUS. It was raining that morning and I got up early to feed the cats, but got right back in bed and listened to the rain falling on the roof until I fell back asleep. Going to cherish these moments while I can because I know once baby gets here there's no going back.

What I miss: Raw sushi. We went to Wa last Friday and I got a tempura shrimp roll that had asparagus, cream cheese, and mango on top with nuts. It was delicious and satisfied my craving. But I also really wanted Michael's tuna and salmon rolls too.

Cravings: watermelon!

Symptoms: No real changes. Still lots of nausea, hip pain.

Anxiety Level: Not too bad. That might change as we get into June and get serious about packing for our move! We're moving to a bigger place at the end of June and I'm super excited about it, but I really hate moving. Does anyone enjoy it?! I kind of just want to fast forward through June and have it be July. So many amazing things happening in July: moving, we find out the sex of the baby, EastLake moves to a permanent location July 14, my dad and stepmom are visiting....it's going to be an amazing month!

Best moment this week: Having Monday off of work. We slept late, then went to the mall and window shopped, went to Legends and got some maternity clothes, then came home and watched movies. It was a nice low-key Memorial Day hanging out with Michael.

Reading: Nothing this week. Lots of our books have been packed!

Dad is: Anxious to feel baby kicks!

14 weeks

I took this picture this morning at work. What do you think... I think this may be the start of a bump!

How far along: 14 weeks 1 day

Size of baby: navel orange!

Workouts: exercising my jaw. Haha. I did walk around quite a bit on Saturday. We went out to the country to visit Anna's boyfriend Scott and see his farm. We played with chickens, horses, catfish, and went on a hayride. At the end of the night Scott proposed! It was so sweet. Such a cool moment for them.

Maternity clothes: I finally placed an order from Old Navy! I got a couple skirts. Looking forward to them arriving and seeing how they fit.

Gender: 6 weeks until we find out!

Movement: okay, I know it might be early. But now I really think I might be feeling the very beginnings of movement. It feels like a flutter when I'm laying down and have been still for a while.

Sleep: sucks. If I'm not waking up to pee, I'm waking up because my hip hurts. The past few nights I've woken up every couple hours like clockwork to change position because my left hip gets too sore. The pregnancy pillow Michael got me was nice at first but now it's become a necessity because it aligns my hip and spine to a more comfortable position.

What I miss: sushi. Might need to go get some cooked varieties this weekend.

Cravings: soft pretzels, air heads (that ridiculous taffy like candy, know what I'm talking about?) On Sunday we went to see the new Star Trek movie and the theater had sour air heads but not regular. Sour would not do. So yes my pregnant self did go to Target yesterday after work to pick up a small bag because I was still thinking about them 2 days later. No shame, they were delicious. And I did share with Michael at least!

Symptoms: still nauseated pretty much everyday. Hello body, you are in 2nd tri now. Cut the crap. Please? The hip pain I mentioned earlier. Lately I've found that I need to eat more frequent, smaller meals. If I try to eat a regular sized lunch or dinner I feel so uncomfortable and nauseous. 

Anxiety level: not too bad this week. We had someone come tour the house this past Saturday so I got a little crazy trying to make sure everything was tidy, but that's about it.

Best moment this week: seeing my buddy get engaged! Also spent a lovely afternoon with my sister and brother in law on Sunday having lunch and watching a movie. They are moving back to NC on Monday and I am happy for them but bummed for me.

Reading: the two books we bought at Barnes and Noble on Sunday: On the Night You Were Born and Ball! (Kids books)

Dad is: super excited that I might be feeling movement and can't wait for his turn. Sad that it will be a few more weeks before that happens. ;)

2nd tri baybee

On Tuesdays I switch over to a new week in the pregnancy. (On Wednesdays I wear pink. Sorry, couldn't resist a Mean Girls reference).

It's funny, everything is so week oriented for me now that I almost forget it's already been over three months. 13 weeks yesterday and I am oh so thrilled to finally be in what everyone says is the happy time of pregnancy, second trimester. I'm holding out, baby...help me here! Let's do a catch up in bullet form to make this easy. I'll try to do this each week.

How Far Along: 13 weeks (and 1 day technically)

Size of baby: Baby is the size of a lemon. Which is funny, because one of my first cravings was lemon flavored things...water especially.

Workouts: Hah...I really hope to get back into this soon. I've been stretching a lot and walking during my breaks at the hospital, but truthfully that's about it.
Maternity Clothes: None so far. I think pretty soon I will have to bite the bullet and purchase a few things. Pre-pregnancy I tended to wear a lot of flowy tanktops and cardigans, so I'm hoping I can work those a lot longer and have them still look appropriate. Pants are definitely starting to get uncomfortable. I've been doing the rubber band trick with a couple pairs of work pants to get by.

Gender: Don't know yet. Our appointment to find out is July 1, although as long as we can hold out, our plan is to have our friend Cami make us a cake that will tell us. We like cake. :)
Movement: I think it's too early. Sometimes I feel what I think could be a little flutter...but it's probably just gas.
Sleep: Still in 1st tri exhaustion phase. Getting up for work at 5:30 am especially sucks these days. I'm usually napping by 4pm so don't come knockin'.
What I miss: MARGARITAS. Sweet Lord, do I miss them. Mexican food is not the same without one. Also discovered last weekend at an event I was at that seared ahi tuna looks incredibly delicious. Alas. Sushi + margarita at the delivery room?
Cravings: Bagels. So many bagels for breakfast. I'm not even sorry.
Symptoms: Still having nausea (yay for pills). It's pretty predictable these days that I will dry heave either brushing my teeth or right before leaving for work. Thankfully, I haven't actually thrown up yet. Tired all the time. Michael says cranky...haha. I did notice that I'm quicker to get frustrated than normal. This makes for a fun 8 hours at work every day in a job where you're on the phone all day. ;)
Anxiety Level: Not too bad-but it fluctuates. Had a moment Monday where I felt very overwhelmed by life. Then I ate a soft pretzel and felt better.
Best Moment this week: Spending my first pre-Mother's Day with Michael. He gave me a very sweet card and tulips. We had a great day at church, then went to Olathe for lunch and to peruse Babies R Us. It was nice to just take the afternoon and wander around stores and think about what's to come in the next six months. We also had 2 ultrasounds last week and got to see Baby Rowland for a good hour the second time, which was awesome!

Reading: We purchased a book a few weeks ago called "Pregnancy Sucks" because the title made me laugh. I haven't gotten too far into it yet but so far it hasn't been groundbreaking, but at least I can relate somewhat to the author's dry humor.

Dad is: On cloud nine about all this. We ordered an at-home doppler and heard baby's heart beat last night right before bed. Pretty incredible.

An Update

Well hi there! This blog has been neglected for the past couple of months. I'll get to that.

The last 2 posts were so cathartic for both Michael and I because we'd felt like what we were going through with our struggle to get pregnant over the last 2 years was this secret thing that only our family and closest friends knew about. Infertility is something that affects so many people, and yet no one knows about it because no one speaks up. So it felt really good to talk about it, even just in this little space, in our little tucked away corner of the internet. The response we received from those postings was incredible, and helped us not feel alone in our journey.

What we didn't expect was that our journey was about to take a sharp turn. Because the day after Michael posted his blog here, we found out I was pregnant.

Talk about being shocked. I think I still am, truthfully. I was convinced we would someday get pregnant, don't get me wrong, but I was also convinced it would not happen without medical intervention of some kind. I had made an appointment with my obgyn for April 24th to discuss next steps and fertility treatments. We had a plan, and we felt hopeful about that plan.

God had a different plan. On Sunday, March 10th, I took a pregnancy test before going to church. It was negative. That day EastLake showed my sweet friend Pam's story about her trials with miscarriage. I lost it. In hindsight I'm sure it was the beginning of pregnancy hormones, but at the time I was sad for her losses, sad for me, angry at the world, and stayed in bed the rest of the day. 

By Tuesday, the day after Michael wrote his blog, my medication that is supposed to help regulate my periods wasn't doing its job. Fantastic. I decided to torture myself further and take another pregnancy test. If anyone out there has tried to conceive for longer than a few months, you may be familiar with "wondfos". They are cheapo paper strips you can buy in bulk to save money. So I took one of those out, tested, and set it on the counter. You are supposed to wait 5 minutes to read the results. But after a couple of minutes, nothing was happening, like always, so I left and went back to the living room. And so the strip sat there for a couple of hours. Until Michael came home from school.

The look on his face when he came back into the living room is one I'll never forget. He told me he thought he saw something. I looked at it-there was a faint line, but I assured him it was just an evaporation line-you can't read those tests after a few minutes because they become invalid. But something was gnawing at me. Over the past 2 years I have taken my fair share of those tests. I have never had an evaporation line appear, not ever. So I suggested he perhaps go get a digital test just "to see". Michael probably broke some traffic laws getting to Walgreens and back.

A few minutes later there was a word staring back at us that we had hoped to see for so long: pregnant. There's really no other way to put it other than this: miracle.

I think for the most part we've gotten used to the idea (although it's still bizarre to me that there's a person kicking around in there) and we're very excited that this is happening. We had our 12 week check up yesterday and everything seems to be going well so far. Baby Rowland was so active when we got the camera on him/her! He/she was bouncing, kicking, and even waved at one point. A cheese ball for the camera...definitely its father's daughter/son. Haha.

The due date is November 19th, so I'm in my 12th week now. So far the majority of the first trimester has been...not as awful as I'm sure some women have it, and for that I'm grateful. I haven't actually thrown up at all (knocks on wood) although nausea grabbed hold early on. Thank God for modern medicine. I dry heave every morning but after that and my pill, I do okay. The biggest challenge has been the fatigue. I knew pregnancy made women tired but I wasn't prepared for the magnitude of what pregnancy fatigue really means. I can't wait to have energy again!! Planning meals has been a little difficult because nothing sounds good except bread. Me and carbs=bff.

Now that we're almost out of the first trimester and "outed" ourselves, I'll post more regularly about how I'm doing, appointments, etc. Belly shots probably won't happen until a bit later. Right now I can see a change in my lower abdomen but I don't think anyone else would. So I'm not taking a picture of that. ;) But hopefully this will be a fun way to document the remainder of the pregnancy.

So yeah, not too much over the past couple of months, just a switch to full time (and daytime, yessssss!) hours at the hospital, getting ready for the launch of summer groups at EastLake, and growing a small human. Oh, and we decided to move to a bigger place in July. Room for a nursery and guest bedroom, so come visit. I hear the neighbors are pretty cool.