8 Week Pictures

Here I am, at 8 weeks! Is it me or am I seeing a tiiiiiny bump there? I know, probably not likely, I probably just ate a little more today. :)


On another happy note, we bought a car last night!!! Woohoo!!! A tan Toyota 4Runner. We are SO excited and we love it!

8 Weeks!

Even though I just posted my 7 week pictures today, I'm actually 8 weeks! Things are going well. I'm still not able to eat much, I'm -10 pounds for the pregnancy, but oh well. I'm eating when I can, and I'm sure I'll make up for that in the second and third trimesters! I can't wait to be able to eat again. I told Jeff that when I "get my stomach back" we are going for a celebration dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and I'm pigging out! Yum, I love that place.

On the car front, insurance came back, and Progressive totaled the car. We have our check in hand, and are now shopping for a Toyota 4Runner! It's been a long week of shopping, stressful, but we're going to wait for the right one. We've negotiated on 3 so far, but none of them have been EXACTLY what we want... We were just willing to take them for the right price. So we'll see. Thankfully Mom and Dad are letting us borrow Mom's car for a few weeks until they get home from Chicago after Andrea's baby is born.

I had an ultrasound on Tuesday to make sure everything was still ok with the baby. I was nervous because ever since the accident on Thursday, I had been cramping a bit all the way through the weekend. Thankfully, the baby is just fine! I even took a quick video of the heartbeat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAYt-lf4AWk

The heartbeat is now 150 bpm, which according to the old wives tale about heartbeats, could be in the "girl" range. Who knows! I'm hoping for some boy hints too, to make this more fun!

7 Week Picture!

Here's my 7 week picture! Jeff did a good job cutting off my head...

Baby's First Car Accident

Well, on my way to work yesterday, I got in a wreck.

I got rear-ended on 190-GWB Tollway. I was stopped on an on-ramp with all the other traffic, and the other driver was not paying attention. I saw her coming in my rear-view mirror, she had to have been going 30-40 mph. I braced myself for the impact, and she smacked me.

My neck whipped forward and back, I'm feeling VERY sore today, in my neck and and arms. I think it's because I saw it coming, and I braced myself, so all my muscles were tensed when I was hit. My biggest concern is the little baby!! The seatbelt was right where the little one is... So there had to be some impact there...

I called the RE office right away after the wreck and told them about it. They said this early in the pregnancy, the baby is so tiny that my body should have absorbed and protected the baby. But they said if I have any cramping or bleeding to call them right away and they'll get me right in to check things out. So far so good.

Aside from the soreness, I'm ok. I had a pretty bad headache yesterday, I left work a few hours early to go home and lay down. I have a bit of a residual headache today. It seems to be getting a little worse right now.

Here is a picture of the car.



It is currently in the hands of the lady's insurance, Progressive. Jeff and I are REALLY hoping they will decide to total the car... We want to buy a new car! We were going to get one before the baby came anyway, so it's just 6 months or so early! We sort of have a feeling they're just going to repair it though... Toyota estimated the damage at $4,000. (75% of the value of the car)

If they do total the car for us, we're looking at the Chevy Equinox and Trailblazer, I'd DIE to have a Toyota 4Runner, but I doubt we can afford that... And Jeff wants me in a Hummer. I have to admit I'd love the security of a Hummer! I'll test drive one, just to humor him, but I doubt we'd ever end up with one! I'm leaning toward the Equinox. I like small SUV's.

So now we're just waiting on a phone call. They said they'd get back to us today or Monday. Hopefully it's today!

Is the Baby a Girl?

I had my first gender dream the night before last!!

And it was a girl!

We named her Kate. (Which is one of our top girl names right now. Jeff likes it more than I do, I'm not WILD about it but I like it.)

So, it'll be interesting to see if all my dreams agree, or if they flip flop, and if they're right!

What a Sweet, Sweet Sound

Tuesday, September 18 was our next ultrasound. I was 6 weeks and 4 days. I was really nervous because starting right around the 6 week mark, I started spotting again, which is never good! I was still pretty confident the baby was fine, but I had seeds of doubt eating at me.

Our appointment was right away at 8:15 in the morning. I was thankful to get it over with so quickly! I didn't sleep very well the night before.

As soon as the ultrasound picture came up on the screen, my first impression was.. WOW the sac is SO much bigger!! Then I saw the little baby in the corner (looked like a little worm!) Then I saw the flash flash flash of the heartbeat. I knew it immediately. We looked at the baby and the heart beat for a while, then she switched it over to sound... I was like, what is she doing?

Then I hear the WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH of the heartbeat! I could not believe it, I wasn't expecting to be able to HEAR it that early. It was so strong and steady! So wonderful! I cried when I heard that!!!

It's 118 bpm. She said that's normal, and that I'm looking absolutely perfect for 6 weeks! They released me from care at the RE, and told me to go ahead and schedule my first OB appointment! Woohoo! I go in next Tuesday, September 25 for my first appointment with Dr. Rovner. He came highly recommended from Dr. Goldstein (My RE.)

6 Week Picture

Here's my 6 week picture that we took last night!



Today is the OU v Utah State game. It's Pay Per View, and Verizon doesn't offer it, so we're going to Two Rows on Greenville in Dallas to watch it. It's a fun restaurant and there's usually a good gathering of OU fans there when it's a PPV game. Pizza is sounding good to me lately, maybe I'll get some pizza. :)

6 Weeks!

I made it another week! Each one that ticks by I just breathe a sigh of relief.

Our baby is now roughly the size of a pencil eraser. How miraculous that it (God-willing) has a beating heart! Think how tiny that must be. At the same time, the baby is growing at an amazing rate! At 4 weeks, it was the size of a poppy seed. All this past week it was a sesame seed, and going from that to a pencil eraser. That's quite a growth rate!

Only a few more days until our next ultrasound, when we should be able to see the heartbeat. Once we have seen that, the risk of miscarriage goes down to LESS than 5%! Amazing! I'm so excited to get to that point. And I'm so excited to start telling people too! We haven't quite decided when we'll do it, I think we're pretty much waiting for the heart beat to make a decision... But I still don't think we'll tell any earlier than 8 weeks. That doesn't sound too bad, I can hold out at least 2 more!

I'm feeling good, for now. It's really touch and go throughout the day. Sometimes I just feel awful and others I'm feeling pretty good. As of now, I've lost 7 pounds since the day I got my positive pregnancy test. Yikes! But I've heard a lot of people lose weight in the first trimester, and it's totally ok. At least this will help me keep the overall weight gain down!

Tomorrow the OU game is PPV, and Verizon doesn't offer it, so we're going to go to Two Rows on Greenville to watch the game. It should be fun, but I must say I'm not really looking forward to being in a restaurant and smelling all those different food smells... Hopefully I'll be ok!

I'll try to get Jeff to take my 6 Week pictures tonight before we go to a high school football game with our Sunday School class.

Feeling it More - 5 Weeks & 4 Days

I'm definitely starting to feel a little bit more sick. For the last couple weeks I have felt more food sensitivity, and strongish aversions when a particular food sounds bad.

They say sometime around 6 Weeks is when morning sickness really starts to hit. The closer I get to that mark, the more I'm believing it! Yesterday evening I had a pretty strong wave of nausea. I felt really sick for about 30 minutes. Jeff had stopped at A&W for dinner, and their rootbeer sounded good, so I had him bring me a glass of it. I'm wondering if it was just too much sugar at once. I've only had 2-3 sodas since I've been pregnant, so that easily could have made me sick.

And today I'm not feeling too hot either. Just sort of an overall "icky" feeling, and I'm tired. I want a nap! I'd love to be sleeping right now. I went at lunch and bought some hard candy to keep in my desk. I've heard that can help when you're feeling sick too.

On the bright side, the weather in Dallas is BEAUTIFUL today! This morning I almost wished I had a light jacket! I think today's high is 80 or something. Assuming the softball fields are able to dry out from the rain the last few days, Jeff will be playing softball tonight and I'll go watch him. It'll be so fun to bundle up and watch him rather than die of heat stroke like I have been all summer!

Hopefully I can catch a nap before softball. :)

5 Weeks!

I made it another week! On Friday September 7 I reached 5 weeks. Of course no change in my picture, but I took one anyway!



And on Thursday we had our first ultrasound! The doctor said all we could expect to see at this early point (4 Weeks, 6 Days) is the yolk sac. So, here it is!



The baby is somewhere in that black dot between the two white X's.

According to all my books, the baby is about the size of a sesame seed right now! So tiny! And the heart should be beating by now. That is amazing.

Overall I'm feeling pretty good. I'm still feeling sick a lot, but I'm going to try not to complain! Besides, it's hard to tell which is making me feel worse - the metformin or the pregnancy. I'm finally able to sleep more, so that's great. My max sleep-in is still about 6:30 or 7 am, but at least I'm able to go to bed early (10:00) again. I take a nap almost every day. It's great!

We had the Blairs down this weekend, and we told them on Friday night. They are very excited! Pat is excited to be an uncle. :)

My mom took me on a mini shopping spree at the Carter's outlet yesterday. She wanted to get me some stuff to have around the house that I can look at and smile at when I'm feeling sick. :) We got a few really cute onesies and then a baby blanket that I HAD to have - it's exactly the nursery colors I'm going to decorate with! Sage green, white, and mocha!

4 Weeks, 5 Days

I have a funny story to start this one off... On Monday I was cleaning our guest room so the Blairs will actually have a room to stay in when they come this weekend. I was tired and in a bad mood (imagine that..) and didn't want to be cleaning. I'd rather be taking a nap! I decided to try to make Jeff feel guilty for "making" me clean when I didn't want to be, so I picked up a heavy-ish box of Breyers and carried them into the next room as Jeff looked on.

I said, "I'm probably not even supposed to lift anything over 5 pounds."
Jeff replied, "Nope, it's 20."
I said, "How do you know?"
Jeff said, "That's what your book says."

BUSTED!!!!! I guess I can't sneak anything by him, he's reading my books!

I went to Jeff's softball game last night. One of the other wives had a baby there that was born on May 3 of this year. It was SO fun and weird to watch that baby and think... That is exactly the age mine will be at this time next hear, taking him or her to daddy's softball games! Just strange and surreal!

On our way home, we were able to get a hold of Joel. He's really excited to be an uncle (again) and possibly share his birthday! How fun!

Our first ultrasound is tomorrow at 2:45. We're excited! I'm not nervous yet, but I'm sure I will be tomorrow. I'm feeling pretty good overall, I still can't sleep very well or very long (my mind just races!) but I have the occasional wave of nausea in the morning and late afternoon.

4 Weeks

This picture was taken on Friday, August 31. 4 Weeks Pregnant.



It will serve as my "before" picture, I guess! As I mentioned a few posts ago, I've been trying to relax in this fourth week. For now I'm pregnant and I deserve to enjoy every second! We had been trying for 8-9 months and were having some fertility problems so we were/are under the care of an RE. After lots of expensive tests (darn insurance!) I was diagnosed with PCOS, so that's an idea of what we're working with.

My first ultrasound is this coming Thursday, at 2:45. I'll be one day shy of 5 weeks. All we'll be able to see is the sac containing the baby, but even that will bring tremendous reassurance!

Telling My Parents

The 4th week has been fun!

It started out by recruiting my friend, Kristin, to help me cook up a surprise to tell our parents that we are pregnant. For a long time I had been wanting to do a spin-off on those Mastercard "Priceless" commercials. Kristin is great at scrapbooking, so she helped me make two picture frames for the parents.



If the picture is too small to read, it says:
Digital Print... $0.29
Picture Frame... $13.79
Scrapbooking Supplies... $4.04

Realizing there are three people in this picture... Priceless

Baby Blair arriving May 2008

I was SOOO nervous all day Saturday. Mom and Dad were going to come over sometime in the mid-late afternoon and join us for the season opener of OU Football!

When they came over, I told them that my friend was getting me into scrapbooking and I wanted to show them my first page. So I handed them the frame. They read it for the longest time, looking at the picture, looking at the words, etc etc, and then all of a sudden my dad reads the "Baby Blair arriving May 2008" out loud and says "ARE YOU PREGNANT?????" My mom said "WHAT???" I started crying and was like "YES!!!" They are SOOOO shocked and excited and thrilled.

The whole thing wasn't computing for them, my mom said she thought I was starting a scrapbooking "business" and was listing out what I charge for items! HAHA!

We went out to Outback to celebrate, and I watched while the rest of them ate. LOL! I had a few bites of my mom's and Jeff's steak, and part of a sweet potato, but overall I still feel too sick to eat.

I had been trying to get a hold of my sister all evening, and then on our way home from the restaurant we finally got a hold of her. When my mom and I were up in Chicago a couple weeks ago, my mom had been looking at one of her books that has actual pictures of babies in every stage of development, beginning from conception. So when I got her on the phone, I asked, "I was wondering if you could get me the name of the book Mom was looking at, or if you could go grab it for me so you can tell me what my baby looks like right now at 4 weeks." Her immediate response was, "You're PREGNANT???" haha It surprised me! I thought she'd have to think about it for a minute! She is SO surprised and excited too!!! I'm so happy we get to be pregnant together, even if it is for one month!

My brother was out of town for the weekend, so I'll be able to tell him soon!

It's the in-laws turn this weekend, and we're so excited to tell them too!

The First (Third) Week

I never imagined pregnancy would be so scary and stressful, but I guess that's to be expected! I've known we are pregnant for 8 days now, and I just wanted to write about the first days before they are out of sight, out of mind!

So I found out at 10DPO on Monday evening, August 27. When Jeff got home from work, I gave him a box containing the pregnancy test, an OU onesie, an infant cap, and booties. When he opened the box, the pregnancy test fell out onto the floor. He asked "What's that?" I told him... Well, read it! (It was a digital pregnancy test, so it said "PREGNANT") He looked at me and said, "Are you really???" I was just as shocked as he was, because it was my first month on Metformin and they tell you to not expect it to work that quickly! We went out to dinner at McAllisters (though I was so sick I couldn't eat!) so I watched Jeff eat, and nibbled a bit on his sandwich. After that, we stopped off at Barnes & Noble and picked up the traditional What to Expect When You're Expecting.



I called the RE first thing in the morning on Tuesday, because I was supposed to be having a Pre-Op appointment that morning for my surgery on Thursday to remove a uterine polyp! The nurse told me to come on in and we'd get some blood drawn and run my betas. They called me back that afternoon and told me my HcG was 23. Sort of middle of the road, but for as early as it was (12DPO) that could definitely be a normal reading. The most important thing was that it doubled in 2 days.

Waiting for Thursday was the longest wait of my life! Wednesday morning, I started to spot. I panicked, and thought it was over before I ever got a chance to get used to the idea of being pregnant. Thursday morning I went in and had my blood drawn again. I told the nurse about the spotting, and she assured me that as long as it's not red, I'm ok. So I lived by those words for the next few days! It took them FOREVER to call me back with my 2nd Betas, we were looking for a minimum level of 45, and they came back 60! Praise the Lord! We had a growing baby!!

Meanwhile, I was lying through my teeth to everyone that day. Everyone thought that I was still scheduled to have surgery, so I had to call my parents to tell them it was postponed, and I sent out an email to those who thought I was having surgery to tell them that my doctor had a "patient emergency" and that we'd have to re-schedule.

After getting the second set of Betas back, I tried to relax a little. I put away all my pregnancy tests (I think I had taken 9 or 10 at that point... obsessive much?) and my thermometer. I was obsessing over my temperature, afraid it wasn't high enough. I decided to relax and enjoy it. Even if something were to happen, I'm still pregnant for NOW and I deserve to enjoy it!

That brings us to the end of week 3 of pregnancy. I found out SO early - at 10 DPO I was only 3 weeks & 3 days pregnant! Wow!

My First Observations and Suspicions

The following was written on August 27, 2007 (10DPO) - The day I found out I was pregnant!

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All this past weekend (Aug 24-26), I have been SO exhausted. I have been tired for the last few months though, so it was nothing really new.

We had sort of a big weekend at our church, it was the big "Fall Promotion" weekend, and we had a leadership party/meeting on Friday, and another sunday school class party on Sunday. Being good Southern Baptists, all of these activities involved horrendous amounts of food.

Ever since starting Metformin, I haven't felt that great to begin with, so everything I have felt in the last few days I have blamed on Metformin. But specifically on Friday night, I took about 2-3 bites of lasagna (normally one of my favorite foods) and I couldn't bring myself to eat any more. Luckily I had brought a bag of fruit with me because fruit was the only thing that had sounded good to me for the last few days.

I ate Mexican food for lunch last Thursday for lunch. Ever since that point, the THOUGHT of Mexican food makes me want to puke. So, what's the theme for our Sunday School party Sunday night? Of course, Mexican. I was feeling SO nauseated just going through the line and looking at/smelling all the mexican food. I found a couple things I could eat, but it was tough. One guy at my table didn't finish his food, and left his plate sitting on the table as our meeting started. Well, that food sat there and TAUNTED me for the whole meeting. I was SO sick looking at it. Eventually I had to get up and throw it away! I couldn't take it anymore!

So that was last night. (Wow it feels like a year ago!) I was a little suspicious, but like I said, ever since starting Metformin, food had done very weird things to me, so I passed it off as normal. Saturday night I got up in the middle of the night to pee 2 times or so. But last night? I got up 4 STINKING TIMES! It never occured to me to test this morning, I think I was so exhausted when I woke up that I didn't even think about it. Besides, I still didn't really have any reason to.

I chose the WRONG way to drive to work today. I didn't think about it being the first day of school, and drove right by our neighborhood's elementary school. What a mess! But as I was driving by, I saw a mom holding the hand of a really little boy, obviously taking him to his very first day of school. I teared up when I saw that! I remember thinking "What the???? WHY is that making me emotional?"

Then, at work today, I had a sudden urge to eat one of KFC's wonderful bowls o'stuff. You know, the mashed potatoes, corn, chicken, gravy, and cheese? Mmm.. It was delicious. Then, this afternoon, a wave of nausea hit me like a ton of bricks. I had to go outside and walk around to get some fresh air. Ever since starting Metformin, I hadn't felt like THAT. It was at that point I decided to test, but I decided to wait until tomorrow morning.

Well, because I have no patience, and I have about 25 internet cheapie HPT's burning a hole in my nightstand, I decided to test when I got home from work. I watched the test develop for about 2 minutes, and as usual, I saw that stark pink control line, and no positive line. I was like, "well, I figured it would be negative. Nothing new, oh well!" And I walked away for a few minutes. I came back about 5 minutes later, and saw that faint pink line. I about peed my pants. I said "oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh" and reached underneath the sink for my box of digital tests I had waiting oh so diligently for this day.

As I dipped it into the cup, my hand was shaking SO bad I was so nervous! And of course that hourglass blinked FOREVER, I walked away a couple times and came back to check on it. And when it said "PREGNANT" I just couldn't believe it!!! I went running around the house and Bailey followed me around barking!

So those are my Day 1 observations and reflections.

Food still doesn't sound good to me. :)