Our baby is already a stinker!

So, I had to go to the Dr. yesterday for a personal issue and while I was there, the Dr. decided to do a prenatal checkup. He whipped out that device to listen to the baby's heartbeat but Baby wasn't cooperating. He moved the wand-thingy all around and kept asking the baby where it was hiding. Meanwhile, I was trying to hold it together and not freak out. He decided to lay me flat to see if that helped. It didn't. So he said he'd go get the other ultrasound machine. He said my uterus could be tilted back and that's why we couldn't hear the heartbeat. Once he did the other ultrasound, my fears subsided. There was the baby. And the little stinker waved it's arm at me as if to say, "Don't worry momma, here I am!". I could see the heartbeat too. It was so cool. The Dr. asked me if this was worth the few minutes of worry and it totally was. I just wished Nathan would have been there to experience it with me. The Dr. did confirm the tilted uterus so I don't know if this will always be an issue or not. My online research says it usually tilts back in place between weeks 10 and 12. I'm in week 10 now.

I also couldn't believe how much the baby looks more like a baby since my last ultrasound at the beginning of the month. And I have a better ultrasound picture now (above). I've been feeling pretty good lately. Nauseous is gone. Just battling the fatigue and tailbone pain. My wonderful husband made his first craving run for me this week. It was an easy one at a reasonable hour. I wanted french onion dip and since he was going to get that, I also had him get me original Krunchers chips and sunflower seeds (which I haven't eaten yet). I can't get enough of the chips and dip right now.

I have a few pictures from the past couple of weekends to post. I will try to get them up this weekend.

Oh, and Nathan is having surgery on his right wrist for his carpal tunnel on Wednesday, July 1st. Say some prayers that all goes well and that he has a speedy recovery.

-Dawn

In Case You Haven't Heard. . . We're Having a Baby!!!!

OK, so even though almost everyone knows that Nathan and I are having a baby, I've been waiting to post it on here so I could upload the first ultrasound pictures. Well, we've been pretty busy the past couple of weekends and when we are not going, going, going, I'm exhausted, nauseous or just don't feel good. I finally got around to asking Nathan to scan the pictures last night, which he did willingly, but he couldn't get them out of the HP Wizard to email them to me. So. . . long story short (not really, at this point!), we're having a baby but I can't post the ultrasound pictures as of yet. :) :(

As of today, June 16, 2009, I am 8 weeks, 5 days pregnant. I'm not really sure when people ask if I should say I'm 8 weeks at this point or 9 weeks. I get these weekly email updates and the one I got this week is Week 9 because it says I'm 8 weeks, 5 days. Very confusing if you ask me. Anyway, my due date is Jan. 21, 2010. It was pushed back from Jan. 13th at my last appointment.

Many people ask how I knew I was pregnant. I guess I had early symptoms but they were the symptoms you might read about but the ones that most people don't experience. First, I had a metal taste in my mouth. I had it every morning for about a week and a half. Yuck! Then, my gums were bleeding every time I brushed my teeth (and once when I was checking out at the grocery store!). I really didn't know these were symptoms at the time. I think the one that gave it away the most was, as Nathan puts it, my super-sonic sense of smell. The new ceiling tiles in our basement smelled so bad to me and everytime I opened the refridgerator, I thought something smelled bad (I think it was that our Brita pitcher needed to be cleaned). Then finally, I had a few more normal symptoms that I won't go into. :)

I decided to take a pregnancy test on Mother's Day. Even though I wondered, I thought for sure it would say "Not Pregnant". When it said the opposite though, I about fainted. Nathan was still in bed and I ran in there. He pretended he was asleep. I was shaking him and he finally said, "I can ignore you all day" (nice, huh?). I said, "No you can't because I'M PREGNANT!" He opened his eyes realy quick then. I cried as we hugged each other. I kept looking at the test to make sure I had read it right. I was just in shock. We had to quickly move on though because we had our families coming over to celebrate Mother's Day and there was lots to do.

We told my mom, my brother and Nathan's parents that day. We wanted to tell everyone but we knew I should go to the Dr. first to confirm everything. The weird thing is that when I sent the email to invite everyone to the Mother's Day BBQ, Nathan's sister, Heather, asked me if we were hosting it to annouce that we were pregnant. She said her psychic just told her that that someone close to her was pregnant. When she sent me that email though, I didn't know I was pregnant but obviously, her psychic did!

Another weird thing along those lines is that once I made the annoucement at work last week, one of my co-workers told me that this girl who works in another department at our work, had asked his wife (who works in the same dept. as this girl) if I was pregnant. And she had asked the week before I found out. So I was pregnant but had no idea. I asked her how she knew and she said one day I was standing at the copier and she just looked at me and thought I was pregnant. She said she can usually tell by the eyes. Crazy! I now call her the "Baby Whisperer". (BTW, she says I'm having a girl!)

Anyway, I know this is a long post but there is so much I want to remember and have in writing about this whole experience. But all in all, we are very excited and feel very blessed. I'm excited for Graham to be a big brother because I know he will be great. And I already know that Nathan will be a wonderful dad because I see how he is with Graham. It's comforting to know he's been through this once before and we both won't be total newbies at this.

We will found out the sex of the baby when we can. I think that will be sometime in Sept. Nathan and Graham are pulling for a boy but I'm pulling for a girl so we can even out our household. But really, we just pray for a healthy baby either way. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers that everything goes OK. I'm sure that I'll be posting a lot as we continue this journey through the birth in Jan. and beyond!

And hopefully, one of us will figure out how to get the ultrasound pictures on here sooner or later!

Love,
Dawn

I was on it -sort of-this weekend!

So I tried to make sure I took pictures this weekend but I didn't necessarily take the best pictures. So here goes. . .

Friday, Nathan and I went to the wedding reception for our friends, Andy and Toni, who got married in Jamaica a couple of weeks ago. The reception was nice and a lot of fun. Toni looked beautiful and I have to say that I'm a little jealous that she got to wear her wedding dress twice! What bride doesn't want that?

Toni, Andy and their head table

Mr. and Mrs. Swain dancing their first dance

me and Nathan at the reception

Chrissy, Janet, Amy and Toni

Jim, Nathan, Jaime and Kyle

Sat. we had a 1st birthday party to go to for Adelyn. She is the daughter of my sister-in-law, Jessica and brother-in-law, Jesse. I think Nathan and I were tired from the reception the night before but it was a good time. Adelyn is adorable and was cracking us up. Here are a few pictures of her opening her presents.

Jesse and Adelyn

After the party, we went to Graham's baseball game. They won and Graham pitched great. He was cracking me up because he was really watching the baserunners and making sure they didn't steal. He picked one or two of them off and he was charging the bases to make sure the runners got back and tagged up. It was a riot. I'm not sure what got into him but I liked it! Here are a few pictures of him pitching. He's a natural.

He winds up. . .

. . . and he throws it in there for a strike!

Right now, Nathan is at the Rennaisance Fair with some friends. I decided not to go since it was storming and I just wanted to take it easy. While he is gone, I took a couple pictures of the motorcycle he just bought from his friend, Mike. He's been wanting a bike FOREVER so I finally caved and agreed to it. Mike gave him a great price so I have to say thanks to him for that!

And finally, here are some pictures of our basement over the last few years. It went from all white walls, no ceiling and horrible tile to blue walls, no celiling and horrible tile to brown walls, a celing and carpet . Not to bad and it serves it's purpose.

Yuck!

white and boring

Stingrays!

Graham reaching out to touch a stingray

Nathan and Graham in line at the Stingray exhibit. Nathan had to take off his long sleeve shirt because it was hot and we were not prepared to be at the zoo! He doesn't usually wear a "wife beater" tank when we're out in public! :)

So anyway, we didn't do much on Friday night. I think Nathan and Graham played kickball outside and then we all just watched TV. Saturday we went to see the new Disney movie, "UP". My work gets these free screenings from time to time. This one was at Chesterfield Mall and we get free popcorn/soda and this time we got giant sugar cookies with balloons on them afterwards. The movie was very good.

After that, we had to go unexpectedly to the hospital to visit my stepmom. She's not doing too good. She has a tumor on her tonsil and had to be rushed to the ER on Friday. She was sedated when we got there so the 3 of us and Josh hung out with my dad for a while. Last I heard, they were still waiting for her test results to see how they are going to proceed. Please say some prayers for her and my dad.

After the hospital, we started to head home because Graham had 6:00 and 8:00 baseball games but we got a text saying the games were cancelled. We hadn't gotten too far so we turned out and went to the zoo. We weren't there too long because we were hot and weren't really prepared for the zoo. I had on jeans and not the most comfortable shoes. We did see the new stingray exhibit. The pictures above are Nathan and Graham as we were standing in line and a picture of Graham reaching out to touch a stingray (they are slimy!) (My stupid computer won't move the pictures to this spot so that's why they are at the top of the page.)

After the zoo, we went to Target to kill some time until we met up with Erica and friends at Las Palmas for Erica's bday dinner. It was a yummy and a good time. But we left our house at 9 am and returned at 9 pm so it was an exhausting day!

Sunday, we did some yardwork (and by "we", I mean mostly Nathan but I did pull weeds and sweep outside - my back thigh muscles are sore to prove it!) Then we went to Graham's baseball game. My mom came with us. They lost by 1 run! :( His team just isn't performing this year like they usually do. That night, we made dinner and watched the MTV movie awards. If anyone reading this watched, please let me know in the comments if the Bruno/Eminem thing was staged. Eminem looked pissed but I don't know if it was on purpose.

Our basement should be finished today. Thanks to Jamie and Brad for helping with the ceiling and the electric. Nathan and I have some finishing touches but it's finished for the most part. It looks so much better. I guess I need to take some pictures to post. Maybe next time!

Have a great week,

Dawn