WE'RE PREGNANT!

Sorry for the title of this blog... I think I'm still pinching myself to make sure it's really true!  I don't even know where to begin.  I have not been blogging/journaling like I really hoped and planned to do throughout this pregnancy.  No excuses but yet I have had plenty of them... I have just had some computer aversions, sicknesses, and once again when I get behind on blogging the catching up feels overwhelming so it takes me forever to start the process.  So let's begin the process.

First of all, THANK YOU so much to everyone for their love and congratulations about our exciting news.  We appreciate all the care and prayers and are so extremely excited.  As I type this I am officially 17 weeks and 4 days pregnant!  SO let me recap the last several weeks.

We found out we were pregnant the Sunday after Thanksgiving and the tears were FLOWING (from me of course).  Keeping it a secret for the next several weeks was SO difficult.  We had our 1st ultrasound the week before Christmas... the word PERFECT was mentioned by the ultrasound tech and we were in heaven.  The sound of our baby's heartbeat was a moment we will both NEVER forget.

The timing was perfect and we set our plan in motion to tell our families for Christmas.  My family spent Christmas Eve Day together and as my dad handed me a mimosa right when we got there, I knew that we needed to move fast.  We had a wrapped gift for each family and Ben immediately gave my parents the bag and asked them to open it together:

My parents immediately saw the image taped to the fancy bottle of champagne and my sisters quickly caught on to what the news MUST be... maybe just maybe they had been waiting for this news.  It was the perfect way to kick off the Holidays and celebrating.  The next day when everyone got to Ben's parents house we presented his parents with the wrapped ultrasound picture and it took them a minute to realize what we were "giving" them.  Excitement all around!  We told some of our friends around New Years and then had another ultrasound!

One of the most asked questions at the beginning of pregnancy is "how are you feeling?" and I was hoping I would breeze on through saying "GREAT!" Unfortunately I've had my fair share of answers to that question lately.  At about 8 weeks I somehow got SHINGLES... it was a roller coaster because an inexperienced nurse practitioner told us it would probably hurt the baby... luckily that was not the case and it was just a rough time for me... extremely painful and uncomfortable.  Then at 10 weeks Ben & I both had the stomach bug while we were out of town (his much worse than mine so thank goodness so I didn't dehydrate).  Then the morning/all day sickness went into full force and is still some days affecting me... both feelings of nausea and actually being physically sick from it.  These have been great but definitely not a solve-all.

At 13 weeks I had a week-long, over-the-phone-with-the-nurse diagnosis of the FLU.  I started to think I was never going to feel "normal" again.  The migraines are now my most prominent "sickness" but I staying positive and trying to keep myself well!  

We aren't the most patient people in the world so when my doctor told me we could find out the sex of the baby at our anatomy scan around 18-20 weeks or we could pay to find out earlier, the decision was very easy!  So at 15 weeks and 2 days we went in for our gender-ultrasound.  I really started to worry that maybe it was too early and we would leave the appointment without an answer... But we got our answer almost immediately becuase...

IT'S A BOY!!!!

We are so over the moon excited.  Ben has said boy since the day we found out we were pregnant and I just developed this gut feeling that it would probably be a boy.  I have always seen myself as the momma of a little boy.  On top of that was the fact that we had a boy name picked out but not a girl name.  So I secretly hoped boy and we can't wait to meet the little man.  Look at how perfect he is: 

We are already swimming in a sea of blue and I LOVE it.  

My goal is to get the nursery done early and we are already on our way.  Ben put our crib together last weekend and went and bough the dresser/changing table that I had picked out and we both loved.  I am in the process of trying to pick out bedding fabrics so that we can get the walls painted ASAP and get some more items purchased.  I am so excited about it all coming together!  

I can't even explain how fortunate and lucky I feel to be on my road to becoming a Mommy.  Everyone says no matter how much you prepare nothing will really prepare you for parenthood.  As much as Ben & I feel like we know what we need to know about being parents (I mean we DO have 4 nieces and nephews! haha) and are already saying how much we wish he could just come NOW, I know that the true emotions of having a living breathing extension of your love alive in this world will be something you can never understand until you experience it.  I can't wait for that day...