Love Hearing that Little Heart Beat

Today was our second appointment with our midwife (who I love more and more every time I talk to her).  Everything is looking good, and we scheduled our 20 week ultrasound for August 16th.  No complications arising as of yet, although I have had a few headaches I thought were going to split my head wide open.  Perfectly normal, as I have been told.  Pregnancy means hormones floating in your body that can lead to headaches.  I need to drink more water.

I laid back on the bed, and she lubed up the probe to hear the baby's heart beat.  This child is difficult to find!  And he or she kicked at the probe pushing on my abdomen.  Our midwife says that from the sounds and the difficulty of finding baby's heartbeat (in the 150 to 160 range), means I most likely have an anterior placenta placement.  No big risks, but I may not feel the baby moving as early as other mothers.  But we'll know more after the 20 week ultrasound about the exact placement.

Either way, I love hearing that little heartbeat whooshing on the monitor.  And looking at Patrick while we listen, there is no greater joy, knowing this is the life created from ourselves.  I cannot praise and thank God enough for answered prayers, in this great gift to Patrick and myself.

Mommy and daddy love you Baby Cakes.

15 Weeks... 25 Weeks Left... Dear God

Get it... it's a "NAVAL" orange?  Navel, naval?  Get it?  Yeah, my puns are terrible...

Baby Cakes is an impressive 4 inches long now, with a weight of almost 2.5 oz.  Crazy to think that at the beginning of April I had no idea a sperm was meeting egg, cells were starting to divide, and "Patrick and Amanda" would become "Patrick and Amanda and Baby Cakes."  I honestly hadn't realized how much time had gone by, until Patrick and I were talking last night about our Hypnobabies course coming up in mid-August.  For some reason, I was under the delusion that we had months before the actual class began.  Nope, less than a month.  And since that class marks the halfway mark of our pregnancy... well... it's a bit daunting that this is flying by so quickly.  I feel like January will be arriving tomorrow, and we'll be blowing up the birthing pool before we know it.

In other development news, no kicks as of yet, but I have had a few moments when I was very aware of my stomach and an odd feeling inside it that I have never experienced it before.  Perhaps this is just the new mommy in me desperate to know my little baby is fine and dandy, growing away inside me.  

The nesting instinct has hit not only me, but my loving and adoring husband.  We've already started designing and decorating our nursery for wee one's arrival, but what many do not realize is that Patrick immediately began moving furniture around and out of the up-until-then office, to make room for a changing table and crib.

The changing table is the one my parents used for my brother and myself, with some snazzy new knobs and a little paint.  The crib was a great deal from craigslist, with a brand new, memory foam type mattress.  Never fear, readers and lovers of Baby Cakes, it is extra firm - specially designed for newborns.

In the above picture, you can see the lovely green elephant lamp that my mother-in-law, Angela, surprised me with.  LOVE it.  The rocker also pictured is the one from my teenage years, won in a writing contest.

Below is a little art project I put together from some wood pieces I found while on a shopping trip with my dear friend, Alicia.  The things in the shadow box, along with the elephant lamp, are a clue to the overall theme of the nursery.  

This is just a little taste of what is to come.  When the room is completely finished, I will  be posting full pictures, and maybe a video walk through.

14 weeks... Starting to Show

The 14 weeks mark has finally come.  Then passed, and we are halfway to week 15.  My baby belly is starting to show, but it still looks like I have been constantly overindulging in dinners and desserts.  Which can be a little frustrating.  I constantly want to scream out, "I'm not just fat!  I'm PREGNANT!  Please don't think I'm fat!!"

How many other women experienced those thoughts when their belly started to poke out?  

In other news, the nausea is finally starting to pass.  I'm not spending every day bent over the toilet, praying to God and begging the baby to give me just a little break.  My appetite has started to pick up a little bit.  And as for cravings... well I love pickles and mustard.  On everything.  Mustard covered eggs has been my favorite breakfast for the past few weeks.  And I try my best to incorporate pickles, mustard, and sometimes ketchup into every meal.  Salads have been treating me fairly as well.

I have been trying to eat extremely healthy for little Baby Cakes (which our friends have been calling everything from Chocolate Bacon to Radio).  And so far, my only vices have been the occasional stops at Taco Bell for a bean and rice burrito and once a week a little bit of ice cream.  My midwife has been stressing consequences of our choices, and every time something sugary or fried presents itself to my mind and appetite, I try to think about my little baby and how it will affect him or her.  Still, so not easy sometimes!

Last week, a friend of ours found out they were having a little boy.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a little girl.  But we won't know until the beginning of 2013.  Either way, this baby is going to be so loved, it will ooze out his or her ears!

Pictures of the nursery coming soon!

Baby Daddy here:

We decided to take some photos every few weeks to show the changes as she progressed through the pregnancy. I don't think either one of us realized until last night, as we were going through the photos taken thus far, how much change had already occurred.

The most beautiful woman in the world!

5 Weeks (05-05-2012)

7 weeks (05-20-2012)

11 weeks (06-15-2012)

13 weeks (07-05-2012)

Dreft

I bought a bottle of baby detergent.

It was the last item on my list of groceries.  Perhaps I saved it for last for a reason.  Cart full of milk, orange juice, eggs, bananas, etc, and I rolled down the laundry aisle.  There at the end, on the top shelf (why would they put it on the top shelf?!) was the white bottle with a pink top (also, why pink?  There are boy babies too...) that meant change.

I don't know why it changed.  But reaching for that bottle (on my tippiest of tip-toes) and putting in my buggy made my heart soar for a moment.  I smiled unconsciously and started humming as I made my way to the registers.

"Well aren't you all smiles today?" said the little cashier standing behind the counter.

"Yes.  Yes I am."

Amazing what a little container of baby laundry soap can do.

In Which Patrick Runs Amok

Last night, Patrick and I made our way to Babies R Us to start our baby registry.  We had already started an Amazon registry, one that we kept private until just recently when we made it available for public viewing.  You can find links to both registries in the box to the left right.

I initially started the Amazon registry a few weeks after we found out we were expecting, adding basic essentials.  Sunday, Patrick sat on the couch for a few hours, adding item upon item of things he'd researched or things that Amazon offered up as suggestions.  The same phenomena occurred when we were registering for our wedding.  He was nonchalant until he actually started looking at things.  Then he went hog wild.  With the gun in his hand, he disappears from me for minutes at a time, returning with a goofy grin on his face.

At Babies R Us, this was no different.  He claimed the gun for his own, showing me crib sets he liked, toys, clothes, car seats, and bouncy seats.  I love this.  I know what a wonderfully spectacular father he is going to be, just because of the way he talks about our baby and how involved he wants to be in EVERYTHING to do with our baby.

And then... he disappeared last night and came back with that grin.  He wouldn't tell me what he added, but later on, checking our registry, I found this:

I think I should get him a treat for being such an amazing provider, husband, friend, and father.  Flying helicopter will most likely do.

Two Ultrasounds in 3 Weeks

My periods have never been regular.  Well, regular in normal doctor speak.  Instead of 28 or so days in between cycles, I normally went about 70 days between periods.  This was the main reason we sought fertility testing when we'd only been trying for 7 months.  Doctors and websites all suggested something was most certainly wrong with a woman with that many days between periods, so being the nervous Nelly I am, i wanted to check everything before the one year mark.

Since my previous periods were in January and then in the beginning of March, our midwife wanted to check the fetal age with an ultrasound at what I assumed was my 5 weeks mark.  I started charting my basal temperature in June of 2010, so I knew I had ovulated around April 14th.  First ever ultrasound, and Patrick and I were both nervous, but mainly excited about what we would see on that screen.

Unfortunately, all we saw was the gestational sac and the yolk sac.  No fetal pole was detected.  Which, at 5 weeks, was perfectly normal.  But from my last period, they were counting me at 9 weeks.  We were sent home with talk of a blighted ovum and a rescheduled ultrasound in three weeks time.

I'm sure I don't have to tell any of you the distress this caused.  Even though I knew in my head I had to be only about 5 weeks, I was terrified that the fertility doctor's words were going to ring true.  That we had conceived a baby, but that I had lost it already.

The next three weeks were torture.  Each day consisted of praying and begging.  But, just like before when we were trying to conceive, a peace came over me.  And I felt that everything was going to be alright.  God's will would be done, and whatever He sent me, I would be strong enough to withstand.

The day of the ultrasound, I was so nauseated I could barely stand it.  Head between my knees, Patrick rubbing my back, I could barely walk to the back when they called us in.  Until she put the goop on my belly, pressed the probe against my abdomen, and we saw the little bean appear on the screen, tiny heart blinking wildly.

Nothing can ever prepare you for how wonderful that feels, knowing that you are carrying a baby, and that it is healthy and developing normally.  I think we both breathed a deep sigh of relief.

Baby Cakes was proclaimed 8 weeks and 4 days old on that day, Tuesday, May 29th.