Is That the Baby I Feel Moving?

The past few days I've started to notice a little fluttering in my belly that I hadn't noticed before. The morning of Brad's birthday (13th) we were lying in bed (delaying getting up and ready for work) when I felt the flutters. The night before I woke up at 4:00 in the morning and I felt them too but I wasn't sure what it was. Now that I've felt this a few times I'm assuming that these flutters I feel are the baby moving. I haven't noticed them during the day yet, just at night or in the morning when I am laying down. It is sure is a great feeling though! I look forward to being able to feel those kicks and movements a lot more. Brad can't feel the movements yet but he keeps trying to...not too much longer Brad.

16 Week Pictures

I am 16 weeks along now and we decided we'd take some pictures to share. We'll take pictures once every 4 weeks so you can all watch our baby and I grow. My belly is starting to pop and get a little bigger now. I am still in my regular clothes but I am going to have to go shopping soon.

Guess about Baby Spins

A lot of people now are starting to tell us their feelings on whether they think our baby will be a boy or girl. So we thought it would be fun to play a little game with this. Our friends Ryan and Abby did this and we thought it was a good idea - thanks guys. If you go to www.expectnet.com/games/BabySpins you can enter in your guess for the baby's gender, weight, length, and birth date. Once the baby is born, the game will tally up a winner. We don't exactly have a prize for the winner...you'll just have bragging rights for being the best guesser. Make sure you enter in your guess before March 22nd because that is the day of our next ultrasound and hopefully we'll be able to find out the sex then. Have fun! I know we'll have fun checking to see what everyone thinks!

Baby Mayra has arrived!

Noah Jeffrey Mayra was born February 14th at 2:57 PM. The Valentine's Day baby is 2 weeks early! He is a healthy baby and weighed in at 6 lbs. 15 oz. and is 20 inches long. Lesley is also doing good. They are all leaving the hospital and going home today. I got to talk to her for a few minutes yesterday but then the Dr. came in and cut our conversation short. They are obviously really busy right now, but I am hoping to get to talk to Lesley again sometime soon. I want to see pictures too! As soon as I get some pics I will post them. Congratulations Mayra's!!!

Noah Jeffrey

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! We had our Week 14 Dr.'s appointment today. We made it there in plenty of time and there were no breakdowns so that was good. It was a very short appointment (under 15 minutes). I weighed in, did the urine test, had my blood pressure taken, and then Dr. Cline came in. She talked to us for a few minutes and then she used the Doppler to find the heartbeat. She found it right away. It is still fast but it has slowed down a little since the last time. It was 158 beat/min. I asked her what she thought about the relationship between the heartbeat and the gender and she said it's a myth. She said we all have a 50/50 chance of guessing it. By the way, Brad thinks we are having a girl and I think we are having a boy. Only time will tell! She scheduled our next appointment and an ultrasound in 5 weeks (March 22nd). We told her that we would like to find out the sex of our baby so she said that hopefully at that appointment we will be able to tell. We can't wait...we are so excited! It's crazy that in 5 weeks we could already know if we are having a boy or girl! It would be great to have it be a surprise at birth but we decided for our first baby that we would really like to find out early. That way we'll know for when we do the nursery and for the baby shower. Also, our friend Jason told Brad that it was easier for him to bond once he knew what he was having so Brad thought that was special. But really, we just can't wait!
So our appointment was short but sweet. It was such a wonderful feeling to hear our baby's heartbeat again! Later we went out to dinner at Bravo's (my favorite Italian restaurant) and celebrated our appointment and Valentine's Day.

2nd Trimester Begins

Today marks the beginning of my 2nd trimester. I can't believe the 1st trimester is already over! You hear all these stories about how terrible the 1st trimester can be but I have to admit, that I was definitely one of the lucky ones. I felt nauseous at times (especially when I was really hungry or if I ate too much) but I didn't throw up all the time like some people. I also went through my phase of being really tired but nothing too bad. I did have my moody days, but that is normal, at least that is what I told Brad. My pants are starting to get a little tighter on me now. I have a feeling I will have to go shopping for some maternity clothes pretty soon. Overall, we are very thankful for such a wonderful 1st trimester! We look forward to this 2nd trimester and each step of this miraculous journey!

Weekend in Milwaukee

We've had this weekend planned with Josh, Annie, Jason, Jaclynn, and Maddy since October and it was finally here. I was so impatient while waiting for this weekend to come. I almost slipped a few times talking to Jac on the phone...it was so hard to keep it a secret this whole time.

We met the Kreider's south of Chicago and then we drove up together. That way we got to spend a few extra hours together. We were so excited to see our Goddaughter Maddy! We hadn't seen her in almost 3 months and she was growing so fast. Brad and I had so much fun playing with her all weekend! Late Friday night we finally told all of them our news. They were hoping we would have baby news for them. Jac and Jason over the past month had put a few things together (me being sick for 2 weeks, our surprise visit to Wausau, and a few other things that I mentioned to her) and thought for sure we were pregnant. They even brought us each a mother/father book. I guess we didn't hide it as well as we thought. This weekend we also got to see Buddy, Gretchen, and Owen Thompson, Andy and Andrea Bonk, Sean Gene, and Emily McClone and her fiance Dave. A weekend full of Tech friends! After we had told everyone it felt so good to finally talk freely about it and not have to hide it anymore! We had a great weekend together as usual. There was lots of baby talk and Jac showed me how to set up this blog for Baby Spins! Thanks Jac! She set up a link for Maddy on our blog too. Click on Miss Maddy on the right to check out her blog. She is so darn cute!

Sunday morning we ate at McDonald's and got a picture with Maddy before we took off. She is smiling so big you can even see her teeth!

Lesley's Baby Shower

Saturday morning Brad and I headed to Chicago for Les's shower. I was so excited to see Les and the girls! Nichole, Teal, and Jenny were all going to be there and I couldn't wait to share our news with them. As we were getting ready for the shower I told them I had some pictures to share and I showed them the ultrasound pictures. They were all excited and some tears were shed (mostly by Nichole) and lots of hugs were shared. I am glad that I got to tell them in person instead of over the phone. We had a great day and it was so nice to see Les again before she has the baby. She looks and feels wonderful! She is really lucky because I don't think a lot of girls can say that when they are 7 1/2 months pregnant.

Our 1st Ultrasound!

Brad and I were so anxious for this day. We couldn't wait to see our baby for the first time and to hear his/her heartbeat! Once again it was hard to sleep the night before because we had so much on our mind. We were so excited but a little nervous too.

I have to share this story with you because now Brad and I can look back and laugh but believe me, we were not laughing at the time. Let's just say the way to the Dr.'s appointment didn't exactly go as planned. The ultrasound was scheduled for 2:30 and our Dr.'s appointment was at 2:45. Well, somehow, I managed to write it in my palm pilot as 2:45 and 3:00. So at 2:15 while I was sitting impatiently in the parking lot of Brad's work waiting for him, I found the piece of paper that I originally had wrote the times down on. That's when my hormones really kicked in and I started freaking out. We had a 20 minute drive or so and now we were going to be really late. I called Brad's cell 5 times and he didn't answer. I was so frustrated I even started beeping my horn outside of his office building (not my proudest moment). I would have went in but I have no clue where his office is and at this point I was already crying. After what seemed like the longest 10 minutes Brad finally came out (he had got stuck talking with his boss and he couldn't get away.) When Brad finally got in the car I was a crying mess. I told him I was a terrible mom because I messed up our appointment times (and I couldn't believe I could do that on something that was so important). I also yelled at him for making us even later. Brad was definitely shocked at what a mess I was. He tried calming me down and eventually after he called the Dr.'s office and they said we could still come in, I did. We ended up being over 20 minutes late but they were really nice and they were still able to take us. We sat and waited for a few minutes and it gave us time to focus back on the ultrasound that we were so excited for!

The nurse came and took us back and of course one of the first things she did was check my blood pressure. Needless to say, it was very high (surprise, surprise). Then I had my urine test and then it was finally on to the ultrasound room...This was one of our most amazing moments ever! She did the ultrasound and we could see our little baby for the first time. Our baby was moving all around and it looked like the baby's arms were waving at us. Then from the side profile we could see the legs kicking. The nurse then turned on the monitor for the heartbeat. It was accidentally turned on to the max so it sounded like thunder in the room but it was such a great sound. The heartbeat was 180 beats/min. Of course I asked right away if that was too fast but they said that was normal for this early along. The nurse also measured the baby and the baby was an inch long. It was so crazy for us to think about how small our baby is but yet we can see the head, arms, legs, heart, etc. It is all so amazing! We were so happy when we walked out of the Dr.'s office...no more tears of frustration just tears of joy!

Baby Spins first pictures!

Front view: (hint) the head is towards the bottom

Side profile: body with little arms and legs

January 1, 2007

We had a great time New Year's Eve but I probably shouldn't have stayed up til 3 in the morning. Between the late night and the busy week we had before, I had pushed my body way too far...it was not happy with me. New Year's day was the first day of a very long 2 weeks of being sick. I came down with a fever that day and when it reached 101 I started to worry. Not for myself but for the baby. I knew an elevated body temperature was not good for the baby. We called my parents and the doctor's office and between all of them they got me to calm down and reassured me that the baby was going to be ok. I just had to get a lot of rest and make sure my temperature didn't keep rising. Luckily the next day my fever went away but because I couldn't take any medicine my sinus infection and cold stuck around for another 2 weeks. Being sick really made me realize that I am taking care of 2 people now and not just myself. I couldn't help but worry about the baby the whole time and it was such a relief when I finally felt better.