THE BIG DAY!!

So at 18 weeks we went in for our anatomy ultrasound. We could not contain our excitement that we were about to find out what our sweet little baby was.  It's no secret that I REALLY want a boy and that Douglas is SURE its a girl. I was so worried that we might not be able to find out due to baby not cooperating to show us a crotch shot (this was because my preg friend Stephanie just had to have THREE ultrasounds to find out the sex of her baby due to baby not cooperating).. All I kept thinking was that I REALLY hope baby was in a good position to see or that the tech would at least take the extra time to try and get baby to move if not. I was really worrying for no reason because the second the ultrsound tech turned on the moniter and got a look at the baby it was pretty clear that baby was in a headstand position with its legs open showing us exactly what it was. :) It's a _____!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I will fill in the blank on Sept. 10th - sorry I know that's evil)

We were both on cloud nine and I immediately felt even more connected to baby. Now I knew who I was talking to in there.. :)  After the ultrasound and our appointment with the doctor we went to go buy baby its first outfit.. I wish I could post a pic but that unfortunately would give it away... after that we went and celebrated Doug's birthday by picking up his favorite pizza from Casanova Brothers and renting a couple of movies..

WHAT KIND OF BEES MAKE MILK?

BOOBEES!!!!  hahaha - that one is compliments of my husband. :)

Random Thoughts...

I wish all baby books were as blunt as Jenny McCarthy's "Baby Laughs" - there are soooooo many things that I'm finding out that I don't think any mom would ever share! I mean gross, grusume, painfull stuff! I mean stuff that would seriously frighten me to death if I hadn't been forewarned... you moms know what I'm talking about!!! Share these things with your unexpecting friends!

Here is a great article that my boss' wife sent me. It's a day in the life of a new mom: http://www.lemondrop.com/2010/08/04/what-to-expect-when-you-have-a-newborn/?icid=mainhtmlwsmain-wdl6link3http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lemondrop.com%2F2010%2F08%2F04%2Fwhat-to-expect-when-you-have-a-newborn%2F

I'm at the point where I cry at EVERYTHING... daily really... I can just think about something random and then next thing you know I'm crying.. Now I have always been REALLY sensitive but this is like total overkill.

16 WEEKS........

We had our 16 week doctor appointment this past week. :) The highlight of the appointment was of course getting to hear our sweet little baby's heartbeat which had dropped quite a bit from 160 at 10 weeks to 139 this week. This is normal though since the baby's heartbeat will slow as it gets bigger. I've gained 4 lbs so far and everything else is tracking well. Another huge highlight of this appointment was that we got to schedule the anatomy ultrasound!!!!!!!!!  The doc wanted this scheduled for 19 weeks so at checkout we made the apointment with the front desk. The week she gave us to choose a day from was the week of Doug's birthday so of course we scheduled it for that date (Aug. 24th). :)  It wasn't until a few days later that we realized I would only be 18 weeks at that time and that they must have pulled up the wrong week by accident, so I called the doctor's office to let them know and they said it was fine and to keep the appointment since they can still see everything they need to see at 18 weeks. So Doug's birthday present this year will be finding out the sex of our baby!!  Doesn't get much better than that!

Highlights from this past month:

I found out one of my best friends out here (Jenn) is ALSO pregnant and just 2 weeks behind me!!  The little terd was able to keep this a secret from everyone until she made it to the end of the first trimester. I'm absolutely ecstatic that we get to be pregnant together and can't wait to meet baby Reber #2 (or as Logan calls the baby, Baby Logan). :)

I drank a liter of Root Beer in an 8 hour window (for someone who doesn't ever drink soda this is quite a highliht). Doug had gone to the store to pick up Sprite for my Sprite craving but also came back with the liter of Root Beer since he knows me better than I know me... The Root Beer was gone by morning and the Sprite remained untouched. :)

What I referred to as the "dissapearing baby" is now long gone.  Before now, some days I'd wake up with no baby bump at all and I'd get all worried that my baby wasn't in there anymore and then the next day it would be back and I'd be smooshing into my clothes again. Now it is ALWAYS there. :) Although in the morning I just feel like Fatty McFee trying to squeeze into skinny girl clothes and by the time night time rolls around I look about 7 months pregnant.. it's very strange but I'll take it over the dissapearing baby!!

I tried out some new exercise classes at my gym that I thought would be baby friendly and something I could stick with throughout my pregnancy:

• 
  
  Yoga - Love it!  I will definitely stick with this one and probably try for 2 days a week.
• 
  
  Pilates - Hate it!  Miserable is the only word I can come up with for this class - the only sore part of my body after taking this class was my neck.
• 
  
  Water Aerobics - hahaha.... No. This just wasn't my cup of tea and I felt very out of place age wise.

I started researching day care options and about cried at the cost. :(

We decided how we will be announcing the sex of the baby to all our friends. :)  Since Jenn and I are just 2 weeks apart we thought it would be fun to announce it together and make a party out of it.  Since our friends like to gamble we will be taking bets for Boy or Girl for both of us and at the party, which we've tentatively scheduled for Sept. 11th, I will announce hers and she will announce mine. Neither of us will know what the other ones is ahead of time...

THE AWKWARDNESS THAT IS MY BODY

So lately I've been having mini meltdowns in the mornings as I'm getting ready for work. NONE of my work pants will fasten and most I have a really hard time getting over my hips. When I do get them on and figure out a way to keep them together (I have been using elastic hair ties) I just feel and look like I've eaten 50 too many ice cream sandwiches. Ughh!! I don't look pregnant...however none of my clothes fit... the only comparison I can think of is when you're trying to grow out your hair and have to endure that super awkward middle phase. I feel like that's where I'm at.

If nothing else I think this is going to give me an excuse to go shopping for some new clothes :)

Here's a picture of what I'm talking about:

11 WEEK APPOINTMENT

On Tuesday, July 6th I went in for my 11 week appointment. It was super quick and consisted of them weighing me, measuring my belly and listening to the baby's heartbeat. I've gained 1.75 lbs. so far and my belly measured at 11.(?) cm. (they just measure a small portion of your belly from underneath your belly button down near your who-ha). The nurse who took me back attempted to find the heartbeat on the doppler but after several minutes of trying she couldn't find it - she assured me that she just wasn't good at finding it and that she bet the Dr. would have no trouble at all. I was a little nervous by this but deep down I knew everything was just fine. Sure enough, the Doc came in and instantly found it. I had a perma-smile as soon as I got to hear that beautiful sound. :) The baby's heartbeat was really strong at 160 beats.

All of this is still very surreal to me - it's so hard to comprehend that I have a living being that's half me/half Doug growing inside of me - this is truly God's most amazing miracles.

OUR FIRST ULTRASOUND

Words cannot describe how amazing this experience was.  I have been a nervous wreck up until this point - always worrying if the baby is okay and if he's really in there :) well yesterday morning I got confirmation that he IS in there and he's doing wonderfully!!!  Doug and I met at the doctor's office for our 9am appointment and we were both soooo excited (and me really nervous) to get to see our baby for the first time.  We went back to the ultrasound room where I got to lay down and have jelly rubbed on my belly while doug sat in a chair next to me.  They have it set up so that you are looking up at a big flat screen TV which shows the image of the ultrasound that's displayed on the tech's computer.  She rubbed the little thingy mabobber on my belly and we instantly saw our little baby!!!!!  My first emotion was complete relief that there was only ONE baby (I was terrified there would be more than one).  My second emotion was a little frantic because the baby wasn't moving.  All the while we were both in complete amazement that we were looking at our little creation that has been growing inside of me for the last 11 weeks. She instantly switched on the volume so that we could hear the heartbeat...the relief feeling was back. :) Then I started crying like a big baby and as I was crying my stomach was contracting and bouncing all around which apparently shook the baby up because he started moving!!!!  Then I started laughing becuase it was just so cute!  He was putting his arms up to his face and just looked to be sliding around in there.  It was AMAZING - that's the best word Doug and I could come up with. :)  He measured at 11 weeks 1 day which bumped my estimated due date up 5 days from January 24th to January 19th. The heartbeat was 158 which she said was right where it should be. We obviously weren't able to tell the gender this early but I got the strongest boy vibes ever so I'm going back to my original belief that it is a boy!!  Doug thinks it's just because he is bald :) hahaha..

I'm SUPER sad that I can't get the video to load of our little baby moving around in there - it is sooooo neat!  I think the file size just might be too large.  Instead, here are a few of the baby's very first photos :)

GENDER PREDICTION TESTS

These aren't official tests by any means....  I did two. The chinese gender prediction test where you select your current age and month of conception to determine boy or girl and the cabbage test where you combine your pee (hahahaha!) and water you boiled cabbage in to see what color it turns. Purple = Girl and Pink or Red = Boy. I did the chinese gender test two ways - first with my actual age and conception month and then with my chinese age and conception month (apparently these are different). Both say GIRL.  The cabbage test also gave a GIRL result.  hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.... I don't know.. I really thought it would be a boy...now I can't get the ongoing joke of "TWIN GIRLS" out of my head. 

MY FIRST DOCTOR APPOINTMENT

Much to my disappointment I didn't get to see the baby or hear his heartbeat... I am 7 weeks and 3 days today so it's still pretty early but I was really hoping I could at least see him so I had the peace of mind that he was really in there.. :)  Douglas came with me to the appointment which was really nice. The doc started by going over all of our family medical history and explaining what would happen at this appointment. He told us he would do a full exam and then have me do some bloodwork. When I asked about the ultrasound he said the first one is typically done at 10-12 weeks and the next (AND FINAL) one is done at 19 weeks to find out the gender.  I could not believe it was standard to only have TWO ultrasounds over the course of the entire pregnancy!! Here I thought I would get one every visit (so at least once a month).. Since he could tell I wanted one super bad he said he'd see if he could get me in tomorrow. Only down side to that is I wouldn't get one at 10-12 weeks.  He said right now the baby is the size of a peanut and the ultrasound wouldn't be too exciting.  He said at 10-12 weeks it actually looks like a real baby and you can see it move around and everything.  So after thinking about it for awhile I decided it would be best to wait.  So on our way out I scheduled our first ultrasound for July 1st (I will be 10 weeks by then) and our next appointment for July 8th (11 weeks). My hope is to see a healthy growing baby on July 1st!!! 

MY FIRST BABY DREAM

Two days until my first doctor appointment... I came home from work and was beyond exhausted. I had been daydreaming of being at home in my bed all day so the first thing I did was change my clothes and jump under the covers.. it was probably around 6:30pm..  I turned on the TV for some background noise and instantly fell asleep and started to dream. In my dream I woke up and glanced at the TV and saw the words TWINS in big bold letters with an ultrasound picture underneath showing two tiny little babies.  Ahhhh! It freaked me out so bad that it actually woke me up from my dream...

GOOOOOOOODBYE NASTY FOOD!

I picked up a book last week that came highly recommended for pregnant vegetarians:

And I LOVE it!!! Genius title aside, this book is amazing and it made me realize how important it is to feed our growing baby the best food possible! I read most of it on my plane ride to and from Sacramento (for my BF's wedding shower!) and when I got home I decided to clean out all the junk in our pantry and fridge and made a necessary stop at Trader Joe's to fill them back up. Douglas was not happy about this and I'm almost positive he thinks I'm insane... this is just the beginning baby!