Halfway there!

Well, technically now halfway+1 week. Dec. 6 marked my halfway point (technically 21 weeks, the whole calendar vs. lunar week blah blah stuff is kinda confusing). I had Matt take this picture but he was in a rush to get to the gym so I had to settle for one with me talking (which I guess is probably pretty appropriate for me...) and my hair in my mouth! Just to clarify, I was trying to tell him to take the picture vertically rather than horizontally but oh well!

I'm officially in maternity clothes now...though I think it's more because I just have no warm weather clothes to begin with so I had to buy some and figured it's pointless to buy non-maternity clothes at the moment. I scored 3 really cute shirts on clearance at Target for $5-7 each so I was excited!

In general, life has fallen into a pretty good routine. I've had a good amount of energy and spend my time working on stuff at home (whether it's actually stuff house work, helping Matt and his mom with starting up the new business or projects for church) and relaxing while I can. Part of me sometimes feels guilty for having so much "free time" but I also know that in a few months there will be a shortage of it so I'm counting my blessings and appreciating it now. Heck, even just thinking about all the baby prep I want to do once the holidays are over I'm thinking my "free time" will be gone sooner than Noah's arrival.

Anyway, didn't have much news to post but figured I'd post the picture :)

Verdict's in!

It's a boy!

You can interpret that exclamation point in a variety of ways...I'm not quite sure how I intend it myself actually. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against having a boy in and of itself. I just felt so strongly that it was a girl that I almost feel like something's wrong! I didn't realize how much I was mentally prepping for a girl. Now when I look at all the things I had planned or bookmarked for the baby's room or registry, even at the time thinking I was being gender neutral, everything feels WAY too girly. I think I had also grown really attached to the girl name we had picked out. And it's not that I don't want to plan for a boy, but I feel like the past 3-4 months of planning are now "wasted" because I feel like I have to start from scratch. Yes, I know it's not entirely true, but that's how I feel...and lately I have no explanation or reasoning for how I feel lol

I think another thing that puts a damper on my excitement is the unfamiliarity of a boy. Again, it's more about my personality of having to have things planned and under control more than the fact that it's actually a boy. I think I just assumed a girl would be way easier because I would know what to do with a girl, being one myself. Now with a boy there's all these things I keep thinking I'll encounter that are going to be SO foreign to me! I know, I know, even if it was a girl doesn't mean she'd be anything like me, so it would probably be just as foreign. That's my logical thought process but it didn't affect how I felt that way. I joked with Matt when we left the dr. office "well, it's a boy, he's yours!".

I know I'll get over it, I already feel a lot better today than I did yesterday. I think it's just going to take time to adjust my thinking to "boy" instead of "girl". And I also think that once Thanksgiving is over and I can actually get into the room and start implementing some of my basic ideas that it will come together.

In the meantime, yes, it's a boy. Yes, we're excited, but don't expect me to be bouncing off the walls just yet. It's not the boy that bums me out, it's the thinking about planning for "a boy" that's stressing me out and killing a little bit of the excitement for me lol It helps not to dwell on it too much, yet...I'm sure once I'm over it I'll be ridiculously annoying about how excited I am again :)

17 Weeks

17 weeks along and I can finally say I'm feeling good! Well, I have for the past 2 weeks but I've been a little busy! I've found that if I am consistent with taking my prenatal vitamins every night then I don't get any headaches and have a good amount of energy. But if I skip taking them, then about 2 days after I skipped one I'll have a bad day with headaches and fatigue. It's nice to know I can actively do something about how I was feeling and it's a good motivation to take the vitamins (I was not very good at remembering to take them...).

The past 2 weeks or so were insanely busy with trying to get ready for the Light of Christmas boutique. As always, I told myself I would work on my products all throughout the year but didn't start until a week before the boutique was happening. Throw in there hosting the annual non-Halloween Halloween party and spending a day down in San Diego with Sheena to see the So You Think You Can Dance tour and the day the boutique was over I slept 13 hours! But it was a fun week regardless of them not doing "I Got You" and the rain and cold that threatened the boutique. One big perk was that my mom came to help get the house ready for the party which meant my shower and kitchen sink got really good scrubbings!

Now that I feel like I'm finally showing enough to not just look chubby (hehe) I need to take some preggo belly pictures. Oh! And that reminds me, I'm SOOO super excited to have scheduled my maternity photo session with an old friend. It's not until March but I've been waiting for a reason to take a real family photo session every since my wedding. Learned the hard way then that pictures are worth investing in so this time around I'm not skimping.

15 weeks!

Yay for 2nd trimester! While I can't say it's all fun and games, it has gotten significantly better! No more agonizing headaches all day, every day. I still get them more often than not, but usually it's in the evening. If it's during the day, usually a nap can take care of it. Still more tired than pre-preggo but not nearly as exhausted as the first trimester! One thing I've noticed is I'm having trouble sleeping soundly. I read about it in my Dr. Sears book but didn't realize how noticeably different it'd be. I feel like I never fall deeper asleep than REM sleep so I can remember all my crazy dreams very vividly and I wake up feeling not very rested. Strangely, if I take a nap during the day on the couch I seem to be able to sleep deeper.

I had my first official OB appointment yesterday, they did another US which put me at 15w, 2 days (according to my original US I am 15 w today which is what I'm sticking with). Again, the pictures from the dr. office (vs. the clinic) aren't very good but I will post them once I get them scanned, there's a cute one of baby sucking their thumb :) The most exciting thing is that we scheduled our anatomy US. So come Nov. 21 we'll finally know what we're having! So far all unbiased opinions/feelings and all my dreams have said girl. Even Matt says for some reason he's always thought of the baby as a girl since the beginning. So we'll see if we're right!

PICTURES!!!

Face on, 12 wks, 1 day

Profile shot!

From my first ultrasound, 8 wks, 0 days

Guess it's time for an update...

Not much has happened or changed since the last time I posted. Life has been "boring", but that means I've been able to just relax and rest and take advantage of my month completely off work. Next week I'm going to go back into the office for one day a week to work on weddings that I have coming up and other projects I was in the midst of.

As far as morning sickness goes, my ability to do much hasn't changed but it has switched from nausea/stomach ache to really killer headaches. The last 3 days have been the best in that area that I've had in about 2 weeks and I was able to go grocery shopping, catch up on some bills & paperwork stuff, make a real dinner last night and even FINALLY broke in the bread machine! And we finally got our insurance cards so I made my first dr. appointment for next Tuesday (10/4). I guess the next OB appointment opening they have isn't until 10/12 and since I'd be past my first trimester and they have first trimester blood work they want to do they went ahead and scheduled a regular check-up. So I don't really know what to expect. It was kind of nice not going to the dr. because I know now I'm going to be presented with all the options of what genetic tests and vaccines and blah blah blah...I guess this is just the start of a lot of decisions I/we will have to make for our child(ren).

I did weigh myself again, though the circumstances (time of day and what scale I used) were different. About a month ago I weighed myself at my parent's and I weighed 139 (made sense as I was about 136 last time I weighed in at the gym before I started my personal training) but yesterday when I weighed myself I was only 129. I don't know if it's the difference circumstances or the fact that I haven't been very active the past month and I've maybe lost some of the muscle I was building up while working out. So we'll see how that all goes...I'm hoping to be able to resume working out and my personal training for the remainder of the pregnancy once I'm done with my first trimester (Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday!!!!!)

Ups and downs!

Saturday-Monday were really good days! I dared to think it was the end of the morning sickness! But yesterday and today have been no fun! Not as bad as Wednesday-Friday of last week but probably close to that bad.

A lot of change has happened in the past week, had 2 meetings with my respective bosses and as of last Friday I officially am not working for at LEAST 3 months. My official duties with WPCC are done as of last Tuesday though I still hope to be involved with the ministry in the future as a volunteer to help with planning events. I knew I would probably leave after the banquet in November but my sickness came at a time when it was crucial for me to be able to perform my duties in a timely fashion and I wasn't able to. All involved thought it best to hand over the responsibilities to someone else who is more reliable. I'm sad that I'm not capable of doing it but it's a relief as I was worried I would let them down by not being able to fulfill my responsibilities. Then on Friday I met with Zoro and he asked that I take at least 3 months off from all my responsibilities at church (knowing I probably would have a hard time making that decision myself!). I will be training some of the other leaders on some of the little admin stuff I had been taking care of and also training Justin's new intern on some of the admin stuff I did as well. There's not THAT much that I can train them on as most of my responsibilities were random tasks I was asked to do. I still want to be involved with my 3 small group girls through their graduation from high school (they're starting their junior year) but we'll see if that's in the capacity of their official small group leader or just as a friend/mentor. I will revisit being a regular youth group leader again in December.

It's been an interesting first week with absolutely no responsibilities. It's a little frustrating because I don't feel well enough to do all the things around the house I want to do now that I have the time but I know that will come. I'm planning on spending a lot of time in crafting for the Light of Christmas boutique in November and after that work on getting the house ready for baby!

God has given me such a peace about "losing" such important things in my life all in one week. I was surprised at how willing I was to let go of these things (and both decisions being not exactly my own). I was worried before thinking about how I would make the decisions/react to stop working but I think God has been preparing my heart for it and it's been a smoother transition that I expected. Now if I just felt well I wouldn't feel so bored and lazy!