Half Way There!

Hard to believe how fast time flies! I'm already coming up on my 21st week and all is going so well! I decided to take a picture of myself so those who don't get to see me everyday can see how I'm progressing. As you can see I've definitely popped now and it's near impossible to hide my ever growing belly!

Everyone says I'm starting to "waddle" a little now and that I look "cute"! Funny, I feel like a hippo. Finding pants in my closet that are comfortable is a challenge. I told Brian that we'll have to do some clothes shopping here pretty soon, because it won't be long before none of my pants fit!

Still, I couldn't be happier! Our little boy is very active and it seems he's on a 2-hour cycle. He's most active from 11:30pm to 1:00am. Lucky me, right? It's cool though. His kicks are getting stronger and feel less like a flutter and more like little "thumps".

It's A Boy!!!

We couldn't be happier! I went in for my Anatomy Screening yesterday and learned the sex of the baby. It's a boy! I knew it would be. In fact, seems everyone thought I'd have a boy. Go figure!

The appointment took a little over an hour because he was so active, the technician was having trouble getting good shots for the Doctor. The technician said she hadn't seen one that active in some time. (Lucky me!) I made out with a few really good pictures though as you can see. This baby is going to keep us on our toes for sure!

We already have our name picked out. We have for a while. It's Philip Brian Zehe. I like the way it rolls off the tongue and the fact that it's a good strong name. Philip is after my Dad and Brian is after my husband of course.

How I'm Doing...

I've been having an amazing journey so far in this pregnancy, and thought I'd share some of the more interesting things that I'm going through...

- I have the most INCREDIBLY vivid dreams! I actually look forward to going to sleep! Some are (how shall I say) really good! And oddly enough, it's not always Brian, or just one guy, or ANY guy! (Phew!) Others are dreams of me with my baby, and looking into his eyes and singing to him. Some not so good, like me driving around town with the baby on top of the car. Or worse yet, the dream I had the other night, where I forgot where I even left my baby. The constant as far as the baby dreams go though is that it's always a boy. So I'm interested to know what the baby will be!

- I have developed an unusual aversion to certain smells. Like barbecue sauce. Or my belly lotion. Or bacon. All of them make me want to hurl! Strange... I never thought I'd have anything against bacon.

- I cannot sleep more than 7 hours a night. If I go to bed at 1am, I'm fine because I'm up at a reasonable hour. If I go to bed at 9pm, I wind up wide awake at about 4 am, unable to go back to sleep. It's torturous!

- My libido has gone through the roof! My poor husband can't keep up! I swear, if I had it 5 times a day it would barely take the edge off! It's a very uncomfortable feeling too. Imagine being at that height of arousal you get just before you start to orgasm...ALL THE TIME! That's me. Lovely, huh?

- My boobs (particularly my nipples) itch uncontrollably! I sometimes want to itch them right off! And I'll tell you, when it's really bad, I don't care who's around. I'll dig right in on them in front of strangers! Sad...All shame seems to go out the window when you're uncomfortable!

I'll post more as time goes on. I'm sure things will get even more interesting from here on out!

Baby's Doing Well!

Brian and I both went to our ultrasound appointment today. I thought he was going to go out of his mind having to sit so long in the waiting room, but it was all worth it in the long run. Brian got to see his baby moving on the ultrasound and hear the heartbeat! His face lit up! I'm sooo happy all is going well. My next appointment isn't until New Years' Eve, which is quite a while to wait, but I'm confident things will go well!

So Far, So Good!

So I went for my 2nd ultrasound today. My mom and dad were in town visiting from NY and they came along. Dad waited in the waiting room and mom came in with me for the ultrasound. She couldn't have been more excited!

I changed into my gown and waited for the doctor to come in. I think while we waited, mom read almost every magazine they had in there! Finally he arrived (he was running a little behind schedule) and we got started.

Since it's early in the pregnancy still, he did an internal ultrasound. He turned the screen to us and said, "OK, there we go. There's the baby. See? It's moving." Mom immediately got excited and said, "Oh my God! Look at that!"

The entire time I'm looking at the screen struggling to make out something. It looks like a sea of black and white to me! Then I spot something in the middle of the screen that appears to be moving. "Oh, yeah! It's cute!", I say.

Then the doctor measures the baby from head to tail. Yeah, what I was staring at was the heartbeat....the baby was pretty much the entire screen because the doctor had zoomed in on the image. Once he showed me where the baby began and ended, I could see it. I felt like I'd been staring at one of those magic eye posters and everything suddenly came into focus.

The doctor printed out my ultrasound pictures for me to take home (which my mom immediately grabbed from him). Then mom said, "I'm gonna go show these to dad." Mind you, I'm still in a gown and sheet! I told her she wasn't going anywhere till I got my clothes back on! LOL!

Anyways, all is going well so far and the doctor says I'm at 9 weeks and 4 days. I go for my 3rd ultrasound on 11/19/08. That'll put me at 11 weeks 3 days. Once my friend and neighborette Shelia helps me scan that one, I'll put it up too.

I still feel like this is all a dream. I've waited so long for all of this, it hardly seems real! Brian is excited though and it feels good to know we actually have a real chance this time!

It's a Miracle!

I'm not sure I could be any luckier!

At the end of September, I found out I was pregnant. Sure I was happy, but understandably worried at the same time. You see, I have had 5 miscarriages. I have never made it past 6 1/2 weeks. Just long enough to start feeling hopeful, then WHAM!

On October 7th, I woke up, and I was bleeding, pretty heavily actually. Having had miscarriages before, I recognized this as a sign of the worst. I told my husband, and it was then that we both agreed we weren't going to try and get pregnant again. Having to go through repeated losses was just too hard.

We went away to our property on the other side of the state for a week and a half and I relaxed, took some time to myself and got a chance to do a little soul searching. I decided that I wanted to be a mother no matter what, but that my calling to be a parent was obviously through adoption since we'd had no luck carryign to term. I felt good about my decision, so did my husband.

When I got back home on the 20th, I went to the clinic to have blood drawn and make sure my blood count (for hcg - the pregnancy horomone) was back down to zero, signaling that I had a complete miscarriage. I'd always had complete miscarriages before, so I really had no concerns.

The next day I got a call from the nurse at my doctors office saying, "We got the results from your blood test back. Everything looks good. Your blood count is at 78,000." My reaction was . "What????" I explained that I'd had a miscarriage, and they told me to come in right away to have an ultrasound to check everything out.

So, I went in for my ultrasound. Suddenly, in the middle of the ultrasound, the technician said, "Well, I see the baby, and I see the heartbeat, everything looks good." Again, my reaction was, "What???"

Apparently, I didn't miscarry! It was a total shock! And what's more is that I made it to 8 weeks! Another miracle! I can't tell you how lucky I feel!

So, before you get feeling like nothing in life can ever get worse, realize there's a little miracle out there waiting for everyone!!!

Westport, WA Trip

Just got back from a lovely weekend at Westport, WA. We couldn't have asked for better westher for our trip! We primarily went down so that my husband could go tuna fishing with our neighbor Shane and friend Bryant. Their trip was not only a success, but also one of the only charters able to go out this season for tuna. (The weather hasn't been very cooperative and a lot of trips were cancelled.)

All in all it was a great time! Got a LOT of fabulous photos while I was there. God I love the ocean.

But have I mentioned I HATE fresh tuna??? Yeck!