18 Week Ultrasound pictures...finally!

This is Owen putting his feet above his head....I know it's hard to tell but if you look closely you can kind of see his little nose and his legs look mostly like just bones. Personally, this makes me sure that he's not only flexible, but brilliant :)

Boy parts! Yay!

Nana Susan thinks his foot looks just like Dan's feet...I think it resembles a bear paw!

My favorite one. He looks like such a real baby!

Skeletor!

21 Weeks!

Excited parents waiting to go find out if we're headed to soccer or ballet!

Waiting for Dan and John to get there so we can go up!

The girls right before we went in for the sonogram!

Vivien came to see what her cousin is....she really wanted a girl. Oops :)

Belly is getting really big and we're only halfway there!

Getting ready

Well now that we know it's a boy we're starting to feel the crunch to get ready. We've been looking at nursery furniture and decor and are getting ready to make some purchases. I've put the link to the crib that we're looking at near the bottom....feel free to give opinions. I'm not sure how I feel about the bottom of the front of the crib.

We're going to decorate the nursery with an elephant theme for sure because I have a real elephant footprint from when I worked at the National Zoo. It's going to be cool to have in the room!

We're thinking that the baby's name is going to be Owen Robert McDonald. We're about 90% sure at this point and we've started calling him that just to try it out and make sure. It's fun to call him a real name. It makes him feel so much more like a person!

Owen has started moving around like crazy in the last week. He's especially active in the evenings and morning. Although, teaching kindergarten may mean that I'm too busy during the day to notice him moving so much :).

We went to our five month check up last Wednesday and everything is still going well. We got to hear his little heartbeat and he's measuring right at 21 weeks. We have two more monthly check ups and then we start going every two weeks. At this check up we got all the information to preregister for the hospital and sign up for birthing classes/hospital tour. We signed up for both during the month of January to make sure that we got through it before he's born (if he decides to show up early for any reason).

It's a BOY!

A few new and very exciting developments have occured since my last post! The first was that I felt the baby kick for the first time. I had been feeling him for a couple of days before I decided that it really was the baby and not my imagination, but now I feel him regularly. At first it was only once or twice a day but now I feel him several times an hour. It's exciting that he's getting so big and active.

The second BIG development is that we had our sonogram and we're having a baby boy! We can't really wrap our heads around it yet that we're having a son but we're very excited! We have already bought some little blue onesies and started looking at nursery furniture. It's fun to finally be able to buy things that we see in the store for our little one.

We are heading to Buffalo next week for Thanksgiving and we're excited to show my belly to Dan's family. My belly has gotten really big recently - even big enough for a stranger to comment at a restaurant! It will be fun to show the rest of the family :). I'll post sonogram and updated belly pics soon!

Not the most attractive picture of me but a closer view of the belly. Please excuse the yucky sick look I've been sporting the last few days :)

16 Weeks

16 weeks pregnant

A lot has happened since our last update! We are two weeks into the second trimester now and feeling pretty fantastic (at least pregnancy wise - I have had swine flu this weekend and that's awful). We had our 4 month prenatal visit last Wednesday afternoon and everything looks great! The baby's heartbeat was 143 and I'm measuring exactly as I'm supposed to for 16 weeks. Apparently my uterus slowed down and my weeks caught up...so no more double wide uterus for the baby.

On a less exciting note, we got our genetic testing back this past week and it turns out that I am a carrier for Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Dan had his test on Wednesday and we're waiting to hear back about whether or not he is a carrier as well. The good news is that it's super rare for both people to be a carrier and even if we are there is still only a 1/4 chance that the baby will have the disease so we're not going to worry until it's necessary. All evidence, like the fact that the baby is moving like crazy whenever we go to the doctor, seems to point to the fact that the baby is super healthy and not infected with the disease. We're going to stay hopeful!

We have 11 days until we find out what the baby is! We're going on November 12th to find out and we seriously can't wait! The anticipation is getting stronger each day.


Here is our 16 week belly pic (it's getting way bigger)

Telling the kids

I decided to tell my class last week about the baby when a couple of parents from last year's class came up to me and said that they'd heard my news ( I told the teachers the week before that). I didn't want the parents in my class finding out from random sources that I was pregnant. So we played hangman...HILARIOUS in kindergarten because they only know a few letters and they kept guessing "b" over and over. They finally got it all filled in and only one child got really excited because he's my only reader! I knew he would know before everyone so I had already asked him not to read it aloud. It was very cute because all of them were SO excited when I finally let the one little boy read it to the rest of them. They all screamed and wanted to give the baby hugs. This is definitely one of those times that being in kindergarten is very fun!

Belly week 4 - Taken the day we found out we were expecting!


Belly week 8 - Day of first sonogram

Belly Week 12 - Way bigger! Day of our first OB appt.

We'll post a belly pic each month on the day we go to the doctor!

Daddy week 12...polishing the tv (see why we need a baby to keep us busy??)

First official OB appointment!

We had our first obstetrician appointment today! I went on my own this time because there wasn't too much for Dan to see or hear. I did get to hear the baby's heartbeat today and the nurse said it sounded very strong. It was beating at 159 beats per minute.

The doctor also did some uterus measurements and she said that I'm measuring at 14 weeks even though I'm actually 12 weeks. She said that if I hadn't already had an ultrasound she would have guessed that I was having twins! So if it ever comes up in family trivia, I have an exceptionally large uterus! She said it was no big deal but that the baby has lots of room to float and flip around.

The other really exciting news is that we get to find out what the baby is at 4pm on November 12th! We have no preference but we're really excited to buy stuff and get it all started!

My belly is getting way big, this month brought a lot of changes!

Here's the video....if you look really closely you can see the arms and legs at the bottom moving a little bit.

Doctor Appointment

Well the first doctor's visit went really well! We had a sonogram and got to see the heartbeat and the baby moving a little bit! The heart was beating 160 beats per minute and we could see all four chambers of the heart. The official due date is April 17th (moved up from April 22nd)!

Here are some pictures and an illegal video from the sonogram (they told us after we started taking it that we weren't allowed but didn't make us erase it)! If you look in the corner there is a little circle and she said it was the yolk sac. Apparently our baby is still eating from that...like a little chicken!

Belly pics coming soon!

Tomorrow is the big day!

I am 8 weeks pregnant now and that means the first OBGYN visit is here! We go tomorrow at 4 and I am SUPER excited! A lot has changed in the last three weeks, like I am getting morning sickness now....actually like random all day sickness. I also think my belly has gotten a little bigger even though I haven't gained any weight and my boobs have definitely grown...boooo. I was hoping to avoid that symptom, but I guess I'll take the bad with the good.

So tomorrow we are hoping for the following:

Normal growth for an 8 week old fetus
ONE fetus hiding in there (Unless you're Logan who is hoping for twins)
A steady heartbeat
A positive test for Parvo immunity (some kids have already been sent home with parvo this year and it's not so good for preggo ladies)

That's about it...video coming tomorrow along with belly pics (even without much change)

Pregnant!

It's official! We're pregnant! We are expecting to meet our baby near the end of April and we can't wait!

I'm almost 5 weeks pregnant (1/8 of the way done) and I'm feeling great. I haven't had any morning sickness yet which is fantastic! The only weird pregnancy symptom that has come out is that today I defrosted chicken and when I took it out of the package it smelled SO bad. I seriously thought it had gone bad and I asked Dan to come smell it to make sure I wasn't being nuts and he thought it smelled just fine. Apparently pregnancy brings out a keen sense of smell and chicken has probably always smelled that way but I never noticed it before.

We have our first prenatal visit on September 10th at 4pm. We'll get to see an ultrasound of the baby and hear its heartbeat at that point! That's the day I'll start posting belly pictures. I'm going to take them every time we have a doctor's appointment. We already took one the day we found out about the baby but I'm not going to post it because it's just my regular belly!