It's a...

GIRL!!!

She wasn't very cooperative during the ultrasound, however, and we didn't end up with any gender shots to share. She kept her legs crossed pretty much the whole time, lol. So I'd say the Dr. was about 80% sure she's a she. It is very exciting and took a minute to digest. I really thought we would be having a boy. I'm very happy with a girl, though.

Here are a couple of the pictures we got from the ultrasound. None of them are 3D unfortunately. I'm not sure why they didn't do any 3D like our midwife said they would. Oh well, I was happy enough to see our little girl in 2D.

In two of the pictures you can see her head with her hand up next to her face and the other one is the back of her head and her back. She was facing away from us the whole time so we didn't get to see any profile pictures.

Quick update before the BIG update

Just thought I'd post a picture of the progress so far. I'm definitely showing now :-)

Lacking sleep

This seems to happen at least a few nights a week. I fall asleep just fine but wake up sometime in the middle of the night (usually to go to the bathroom) and then lay awake in bed. At least the baby is awake with me tonight :-)

Perfect time for a vacation

Things had been getting pretty hectic around the house lately. I had been contem- plating quitting my job for several months and after much talking and tally making we decided it would be best. I don't plan on being able to stay at home with the baby but I needed a job that was more attuned to the needs and wants of a new mom. It's scary to make a career change with a baby on the way but my last day will be June 30th. I'm hoping to find a new job by then but if not, we'll make it work (at least that's what I keep telling myself).

So the stress has been building up with the thought of losing the income I bring in, having a baby on the way, gutting and re-doing the basement of our house, etc. A vacation to the Florida coast was just what I needed and I now feel like a new woman...or at least a woman with more stable hormones, lol. Photos from the trip are throughout the post.

During the first couple of days on the trip I started noticing that the baby's kicks were getting stronger and more frequent. Yay! They can now be felt from the outside and pretty constantly throughout the day. A large portion of the trip I spent time just feeling and enjoying the kicking. This pregnancy feels more and more real everyday.

Unfortunately, Shaun was unable to go on the vacation with me. His work wouldn't let him take the time off and the same day I got home he had to leave for Indiana so I haven't seen him in a little over a week and I won't be seeing him until next weekend. It also means that he hasn't been able to feel the baby kick yet. I can't wait for him to get home so he can experience this with me. Every change that has been happening throughout this pregnancy makes him get these huge smiles that are contagious.

Other than that there isn't much new around here. We are one week out from the ultrasound appointment and I'm getting more impatient with each day that passes. I took a poll of some friends and family and a majority (about 75%) are guessing boy while the rest (about 25%) are guessing girl. Can't wait until we find out!!!

Getting to where we are

The best place to start would be the beginning. Both Shaun and I have always wanted to be parents. While we were dating we talked about it a lot and dreamed about how many kids we would have. I think the number still hangs around 3 or 4.

When we decided to start trying to get pregnant the first step was to stop the birth control. By this point I had been on Depo for 3+ years and I knew getting off of it would take awhile and all the literature I was reading said it could take up to a year to get pregnant. If I had known about that ahead of time I probably wouldn’t have been using it as my preferred method of bc. Oh well, hind sight, right?

About 4 months after going off of Depo I ran across a charting website called Fertility Friend where I could chart what was happening with my body in order to better my chances at getting pregnant. Those first few months my cycles were messed up. I didn’t let it get to me, though, since the Depo was probably still in my system.

By February of 2007 I was successfully ovulating on my own (yay!). That meant that theoretically I should have been able to get pregnant. However, it didn’t happen until December 2007. There were a few disappointing doctor’s appointments along the way, but ultimately we ended up conceiving naturally.

Right around 5 weeks there was a scare with bleeding but an exam followed by blood tests reassured us that the baby was thriving! We had planned on waiting to tell our families but we are terrible about keeping secrets and told everyone right away. Everyone was happy for us (with the exception of one aunt I’d prefer to not talk about) and things have been great thus far.

To date we have had 3 appointments with our wonderful midwife and we have heard the baby’s heartbeat twice. Later this month we will have our anatomy scan and will find out the gender of the baby!! I’ll post pictures when we have them.

Setting the tone

Being pregnant for the first time there are a lot of books available to tell you what to expect. A common suggestion found in most of the books I have read so far (thanks to Shaun for going on a book buying rampage) say that you should start a journal of your experiences to share with your child as they grow up. I tried starting a paper one but that has already failed miserably. Since I’m on the computer all day I decided to try this out for a bit :-)