Whoa! Where'd that belly come from?

Well, as most of you know by now, We're Expecting!  We are due July 5, 2011.  

In the wee hours of the morning on November 1st, I was wide awake.  My period was five days late and I knew there was a pregnancy test in the bathroom.  I anxiously waited for Steve's alarm to ring at 4:15 am.  When it did, I told him I wanted to take the test.  He was pretty excited and said okay!  I was totally expecting a negative but wanted to be sure so I could go back to sleep!  Little did I know a few minutes later our world would change!  So I read the directions thoroughly to make sure we didn't screw it up.  I set the stick on the counter and finished up.  Before I could even stand up, it had two clear pink lines in the window! Steve was shocked and started looking for the instructions to make sure that two lines meant positive.  (By the way, it says right on the stick!  Silly boy!)  I was completely shocked and instantly started crying out of worry and excitement.  How much Ibuprofen had I taken in the last month????  I didn't know!  

Then we started discussing who and how we were going to tell.  We decided to tell my parents and Steve's sister Carolyn that evening.  Right after work I ran to Robert's Crafts and bought a sheet of iron on transfer paper.  I designed the logo on Optimus' shirt below.  It reads "I'm going to be a BIG BROTHER! July 2nd".  We invited my mom over for dinner that night (my dad was at work) and let Optimus out into the living room to greet her.  She read his shirt and said "You're getting a new puppy?"  She claims she understood, but didn't want to jump to conclusions.  Oh and Steve was also wearing a t-shirt that said I <3 hot moms!  

After mom left, we rushed out to see my dad at the fire station.  I'm sure he was curious as to why we wanted to make a sudden visit late in the evening.  We showed him a close up of the picture above and he did not "get it".  We explained some more and then he said, "Oh!"  Then we zoomed out to North Salt Lake to tell Carolyn and Bob.  They had to expect something was up.  It was well past 9 pm now.  We sat them on the couch and just told them.  It was pretty exciting because Carolyn had recently told us she was expecting.  And Steve's other sister Keri was also expecting!  Wow, how did that happen?  Well, okay, I know how it actually happened, but if you don't, go ask your mom and dad!  

I already had my yearly exam scheduled with my OB/GYN for two weeks from that day.  But of course I called them to see if I needed to or could possibly (even if I didn't NEED to) come in earlier.  They just said they would change my appointment type and I was all set to come in on the day I was already scheduled...dang!  Oh well, we waited very patiently (not!) for that day to come.  I was soooooo nervous!  When the day finally came, I was so anxious and such a bundle of nerves that my blood pressure was uber duber high.  It was like 165/110!  Yikes!  They took my B.P. again after my appointment and it wasn't as high, but still on the higher end.  I was scheduled for an ultrasound later that week.  Here is our little peanut.  We were told the little circle with the black spot in it on the right was the yolk sac.  The yolk sac later becomes part of our little baby's belly.   As you can see in the picture our nut was 7 weeks old in this pic.

Steve and I had figured out the date of conception since at the time I had been keeping track on my phone.  We thought the due date would be July 2nd.  But the doc went by the first day of my last menstrual cycle which put our due date at July 5th.  By the way, I don't think I mentioned this, but our sweet baby was planned and we had been trying for just two months!

Now it's time to watch the ever expanding belly and boobies!  hahaha Sorry had to put that in there!  This is me at 9 weeks.

12 weeks Wow!  Who did that hair?  Apparently not me!

15 Weeks

18 Weeks

21 weeks I originally thought that I'd wear the same shirt over and over to see how tight it got, but then I got tired of all my pics looking the same.  So now I switch it up.

24.5 Weeks  Getting bored of that same smile week after week?...I am!  My belly seems to have actually shrunk in this one.  We keep track on the door behind me with blue tape and this time around it was smaller.  

About a month or so ago, I started to get major back aches sometimes in my lower back, but mostly my upper back.  I tried out the basic belly support band which was just a wide elastic strap that went around your back and under your belly.  That NEVER stayed in place.  So I had to go back and get the industrial strength one! Mikey here is demonstrating what I wear under my clothes every day.  He looks much cuter in it than I do!  I think it actually fits him better too!  He doesn't have my "wide load coming through" hips!

On February 24th we went in for our big ultrasound!  We were super excited because we hopefully would find out the gender of our little baby.  After actually seeing a baby in there...whew!! we asked the tech what side my placenta was on.  Steve had read a study done a few years ago that could identify the gender of a baby as early as 6 weeks by seeing what side the placenta was on.  It has a success rate of about 97% so we were excited to see if it was right.  The tech told us the placenta was on the left back side.  That would mean a girl. We had always thought it was a girl for some reason, but weren't sure.

This is our sweet baby's profile.  That would be a leg sticking out of its belly. :-)  

 Here is the baby's arm.

 This is another profile of the face.

 This is looking straight on at the face.  The big circle on the right is the belly.

Here is a cute little foot.  Can you see the big toe spread apart from the other ones?

 Here is our favorite picture.  You can see the baby's spine and profile.

To tell the family what the gender was we decided to have a big reveal party.  I made cupcakes and had dyed the batter pink or blue for the gender of our little one.  Steve was soooo cute. He decided to make a survey on his new Motorola Xoom tablet.  As the family came into the house, they each had to state their name and what they thought our little baby was, a boy or a girl.  Out of 18 people, 11 said boy and 7 said girl.  What is just amazing is I did a graph in my class the next day to see what those kiddies thought it was going to be and we had EXACTLY the same results.  Eleven kids said boy and 7 kids said girl.  (By the way, no I do NOT only have 18 kids in my class....I wish!  Some were just absent.)

Here is a picture of mom finding out.  It's a little fuzzy, but you can see the excitement.  She took a big ol' bite out of her cupcake!

Here is Grandma Adams' reaction!  She had licked a small bit of frosting off the top!

Here are more of the family eating their cupcakes.  Notice Grace's cupcake in the middle of the table.  We had told all the kids they couldn't even TOUCH them until I said "go".  I think that just confused poor Grace and she thought she was being punished when we told her she couldn't touch it.  It took a lot of encouragement to get her to touch and eat her cupcake.  

If you didn't know already, or couldn't see the cupcakes, here is the ultrasound picture that explains it all!

IT'S A GIRL!! 

Well, I think this is a pretty sufficient blog post for the first one in almost a year!  Yikes!  But next time I will show you all the awesome baby stuff we have already gotten.  Both Steve and I can't seem to leave a store without first walking through the baby department.  It doesn't matter if we've walked through it recently before, we still have to have a looksie!  ;-)