17 1/2 weeks

Well we had another doctor's appointment today. I have started gaining weight and my doctor even commented on my cute little bump. He is predicting we are having a girl, I guess we will see in a month. Everything seems to be going well, which is wonderful, and I think I have even started feeling the little one move every once in a while which is pretty cool. I can't wait until the baby's movements are stronger and more regular. Here our some pictures from today.

Luck and Belly Buttons

I've decided to start documenting the unexpected positives of being pregnant. Since I'm still trying to get my appetite back and still get sick every once in a while I'm trying to focus on everything positive in hopes that I am happy and not a grumpy bum.

The first unexpected plus I came across yesterday. For those of you who don't know, which is probably all of you because very few of you have seen my belly button, I have a very deep belly button. It is deep and very skinny so trying to clean anything out of it is pretty much impossible. Well, my belly button has not popped out yet but it has started stretching and I realized yesterday this allows me to stick my finger all the way to the end...I will save you the fairly disgusting details but lets just say I have a clean belly button now. I always thought if I can't get my finger in to get anything out I must have a pretty clean belly button because nothing can get in...that was not the case! I can't wait until my belly button does poke out and I can make sure I actually got everything. (Sorry kind of gross but true)

The second I realized yesterday as well. Brandon and I used to play board games every Sunday, it was a way for us to spend a day free of technology and totally focused on each other and relax. Generally Brandon would demolish me at pretty much every game we played so the tradition slowly started to die. A few weeks ago I decided I wanted to start playing board games, and of the past 7 games we have played  (including Settlers of Zarahemla, Scrabble, and Yahtzee) I have won 5 of them. Not only have I won the majority I have dominated the games I have won. For example, last night we played Yahtzee. Brandon had a respectable game ending up with a score of 263. I on the other hand scored a 639! For those of you who are interested that included two Yahtzee's of 6's and a Yahtzee of 5's all after my original Yahtzee of 3's. The game was pretty much amazing. And that is when it hit Brandon and I that being pregnant brings me a lot of luck at board games. I try to comfort Brandon by telling him that it really isn't fair because the games are really 2 vs 1, I don't think he finds that very consoling...

So there you have it folks, the first two unexpected pluses of being pregnant: a clean belly button and a lot of luck playing board games.

First trimester and such

Well, my first trimester probably wasn't as bad as some, but it was tiring to have no appetite but having to eat or I would throw-up because I was hungry, as well as just throwing up just because. Luckily I made it through in one piece and I'm ready to move on to bigger and better things.

We were lucky to get an ultrasound photo of our baby way before most do. When I went into the doctors to see if the medication had worked and the doctor saw I had one really good follicle he decided to print out the picture. As he handed it to me he said this was going to be the first picture of our baby, I was really hoping he was right. And he was! Here is the photo (the big black circle is the follicle that held the egg that is most likely our baby):

My first appointment was a day before I was seven weeks, just to make sure I only had one little baby growing in my tummy the doctor did an ultrasound and with a very small twinge of sadness but a lot of relief we got to see the one little one in there. The ultrasound was really cool, especially for Brandon when the doctor zoomed in on the baby and you could see it's little heart beating and then the doctor let us hear it as well. The baby's heart was beating at 120 BPM. This was by far Brandon's favorite part, and it was very reassuring to me as well. Here are the first photos of our baby:

My next appointment was actually when I was 13 weeks so I was already in my second trimester. We got to hear the heart beat again which was up to 150 BPM, and the doctor let us know that all of my blood work came back normal, which was nice to hear.

At the end of the first trimester I was already starting to get uncomfortable wearing my regular pants and after trying a few things to make them work, and looking into maternity pants that would be long enough I decided to just make my own. Below are some pictures, I'm 15 weeks in them.

It was fun to start making things for this pregnancy and I'm looking forward to starting to make things for the baby. I still can't believe that we are actually pregnant, there were many days when I doubted it would ever happen. I'm so grateful for this blessing and I'm looking forward to experiencing more parts of pregnancy.