Bye Bye First Tri!!

Since I am now 13 weeks pregnant, I am oficially done with the first trimester. Yay! I feel like that is a huge milestone to get past since first tri is such a risky period of pregnany. I am feeling really good - both physically and emotionally with this pregnancy. I am loving my baby bump, and purposely wearing outfits that play it up and make me look unmistakeably pregnant, rather than just chubby.

Here is this weeks pic - 13 weeks and baby is the size of a peach!

I'm pretty much half and half with maternity clothes vs. regualar clothes now. I've been wearing lots of dresses, just because they are loose and comfy, and I can still wear the comfy, elastic waisted pants and shorts, but as for jeans or anything that buttons, there is no way that I am buttoning them. Especially by the end of the day. It's crazy how in the morning, I can wake up and feel like I don't have much of a belly at all, but by the end of the day...whoa!! Check out this pic from last night...I almost don't want to post it because I feel like I look ridiculously huge, but here ya go:

YIKES! Well, my belly may be ginormous, but at least I feel like my face doesn't look so puffy this week. So even though I think I look gigantic for only 13 wks, at least I don't have the chubby face look going on anymore! :)

12 weeks stats and pic

Well, now the baby is the size of a plum and looks something like this:

12 Weeks Pregnant

I feel like at this point, I definitely look pregnant and there really isn't any hiding it I think I'm definitely starting to get the bloated, pregnant face which I think is a dead giveaway. Although apparently everyone seemed to suspect that I was pregnant at my sister's wedding at the end of June and I was only 8 weeks then. I think part of it was the cut of the dress, but looking back at the pics, I guess if you were looking for it, you really could tell I was pg.

Anyways, here is this week's pic:







And, for fun - a "is that a baby bump?!" pic from Shannon's wedding:

Too bad Zoey's eyes were closed in the pics, but you get the idea. I don't think it was that obvious that I am pregnant at this point, but I recently found out that the "is Amy pg?!" speculation was the talk of the reception that night. Hmm...maybe they noticed I wasn't drinking??

12 week appointment

Today I had my 12 week dr appointment. It was pretty uneventful - the typical blood pressure, weight, pee in a cup - yay! But, she did listen for the heartbeat with the doppler and that was the highlight of the appointment. Right away we heard a nice strong heartbeat which was such a huge relief. She said "Wow, you have a very cooperative baby -- I didn't even have to give you my spiel about not worrying if we don't hear it right away since the baby is still so tiny. That's definitely a nice strong heartbeat and baby's letting you know that everything is okay". So, that was a great moment - I even got a little teary-eyed. We have had such a long, tough road getting here and I feel so thankful and blessed that this pregnancy is healthy and everything is going well.

11 weeks pregnant

I know I have not been good at keeping up with these weekly pregnancy posts, but things were really crazy there for a while - within a week's time I finished up the school year, my sister got married, and we moved into our new house. So it was really nuts there for a while, and we were without internet for about 3 weeks so I had no way to update. So, now that things have settled down a bit, I'm going to try to keep up with the weekly posts.

So, I am now 11 weeks pregnant. The baby is now the size of a lime (wow! lots of growth since I last posted at 7 weeks with a blueberry!) and looks like this

11 Weeks Pregnant

I have been feeling pretty good. I think maybe I'm getting past the naseau and constant exhaustion, but it seems to come and go. But more importantly, we have now made it a few weeks further than any of the pregnancies that I lost so that is a huge milestone. I've also seen the baby's heartbeat twice and so I'm starting to believe that this pregnancy might really result in a baby. It's still hard for me to totally let go of my fears, but I'm starting to get to the point where I can say that I am feeling more confident in this pregnancy than I am afraid. And for the first time this week, Joe put his hand on my belly and said "hi baby" which was really sweet. It sounds like such a small, simple thing, but in the beginning of this pregnancy we were both just so scared that we were kind of dettached from the whole thing because we were so afraid of something going wrong again.



So, I would say that we are in a good place right now. And I'm definitely starting to get an obvious belly. Here is a pic from this week - you really do show faster the second time around!

My baby girl is 2!

It's so hard to believe that Zoey is 2! She is definitely not a baby anymore and has developed such a little personality within these past few months. I think this is such a fun age and love seeing how much she is learning and changing every day. She is talking so much now - not just words but actual sentences of 4-5 words. She has also started counting and can count up to 8 (but she always forgets 4!). She also finally understands the concept of colors now (rather than everything being "yellow") and recognizes some of the colors - yellow, pink, and purple are current favorites, she gets confused with some of the other ones. I definitely can see that she has learned so much from daycare this past year and even though it was really hard for me to send her there, I can definitely see the benefits.

So, on Sunday we had a very nice birthday party in our new house! It was a beautiful day and the kids were able to play outside, Joe was able to BBQ, and we were all able to relax and have fun. Here are some pics. (I haven't posted pics of Zoey in a while, so be forewarned, there will be LOTS of them!) :)

Playing outside with cousin Madalynn



Here's her birthday cake (Thank you Betty Crocker!) It may not look fancy, but it tasted delicious! :)

She wasn't too sure about everyone singing Happy Birthday to her...But when it came time to eat, she wasn't shy and dug right in!

She absolutely loved opening her presents, and even got excited about the cards! (She thought they were books). After opening each present, she went around and gave hugs and kisses to say thank you and showed off her new stuff to everyone. It took a while, but was so sweet and adorable!

And the best party of any birthday party - opening and playing with all the new toys!

Relaxing with Aunt Sara and cousin Cole at the end of the party. She was exhausted, but so happy. It really was a perfect day!

In just a few weeks...

We will be in our new house! I am SO excited and can not wait. We are actually going to be closing on Friday but won't be able to move right away because the sellers need to rent back from us for a few weeks until their new place is ready. I'm a little bummed that we have to wait, but I know that it will be well worth it - finally we will have a basement and a second story and not feel like we live in a constant state of clutter.

Here are some pics! :)

Front of house:

Backyard:

Living room:

Kitchen:Dining area that overlooks family room Family room:

Downstairs bedrooms:

Upstairs bedrooms

There are definitely some things that we want to change - paint, carpeting, etc...but overall we absolutely LOVE the house and we're so excited to move in!

7 weeks

Now I am seven weeks pregnant. The baby is the size of a blueberry and looks like this:

7 Weeks Pregnant

Since I was so late on my six week post there is not much new to report. I continue to feel fat and icky and I'm constantly paranoid that people are staring at my tummy and wondering if I am pregnant or just gaining weight. Here is this week's pic:

And in Zoey related news...

She has started using the potty! I haven't posted much about Zoey lately because for a long time I had just been completely negelecting my blog, but I just had to AW this accomplishment because I'm so excited.

Zoey has been showing signs that she is ready for potty training for a while now, but I haven't really been pushing the issue. She will sit on the potty and sometimes even ask to use it, but wouldn't ever go. Well, on Memorial Day weekend, we went to Joe's mom's cottage and right before bed, she told me she had to go potty. I thought she was just stalling going to bed, so imagine my surprise when she actually went! So, I've been trying to put her on the potty a few times a day. Usually she won't go, but at least she is getting in the routine of trying and understands what she is supposed to do. And earlier this week we had another success - after her bath she peed and pooped on the toilet. I never thought I would be so excited about poop - lol! :)

So, once I'm officially off for the summer, I plan on really starting to work on potty training with her. Just another thing that reminds me that my baby is growing up - I can't believe it!

6 week stats a little late

I am a little late on my 6-week post, but baby is now the size of a sweet pea (aww!) and looks like this:

I have been feeling okay - still pretty queasy and exhausted all the time, but I am taking that as a good sign that the baby is healthy and growing. I am glad that school is just about over for the year. Today was the last day of classes, and then I have two weeks of exams and then I am done! I can't wait to be off for the summer. It will be so nice to be able to rest and relax and not have to worry about all the stress that comeas along with teaching.

So, here is my belly pic for this week. I took it today at 6 weeks 4 days, so it's a few days late. I am definitely feeling very bloated and I think that my belly is looking a little ridiculous considering how tiny the baby is right now. It is getting challengin figuring out what to wear every day because I feel like everything makes me look fat and I'm not quite ready to go public with this pregnancy yet. I have to confess that I broke out the maternity jeans this week. I know it's ridiculously early and I don't really need to wear them yet, but they are just so comfy that I couldn't resist!

We have a heartbeat!

HUGE sigh of relief! I feel like a big weight has been lifted and I can finally breathe.

Today was a loooong day. I have been feeling so conflicted about things all day long. I really wanted to stay optimistic and hopeful about things, but at the same time I was worried that I would get my hopes up and then be devestated to receive bad news.

So we finally got to the appointment, and pretty much as soon as there was an image on the screen, she said "Well, we have a heartbeat". It was an incredible moment. I said "Oh my God, really?" and immediately burst into tears and even Joe got teary-eyed. I think that we both were honestly expecting the worst, so this was a very happy surprise.

So, she looked at everything and took some measurements and everything looks right on target with where we should be right now. So, I think this little one really might be a keeper. With all of my other losses we never made it to the point of seeing a heartbeat, so this is a huge milestone for us. I am so incredibly happy right now. Here is a pic of our little sweet pea: