I'm Pregnant!

Again, this post is way over due. Deal with it.

After begging Dallas to have kids for the last 3 years, we are finally going to be parents!! I have wanted this for so long, and am overwhelmed with nerves and happiness at what lies ahead of us! Here are all the details:

I was three days late, which is very abnormal for me since I could practically tell you the exact time of the day I would start. Sometimes, on a rare occasion, I would go late. I remember thinking that if I hadn't started my period by Wednesday night (which is definitely not normal for me..I always started by Tuesday at the latest) then I would begin to wonder. Wednesday night rolled around and still nothing. I was pretty much in denial though, and didn't want to take a test for fear that it would be negative. Thursday came and went and that night Dallas and I went to the store and got two tests. I could not believe I was actually buying a pregnancy test. By now, I was 4 days late. It was July 30, 2009. I remember when we went through the check out the girl looked at the pregnancy tests, looked at me, looked back at the tests, handed me my receipt, and said, "have a fun night!" Hah! Very funny! I was so nervous and scared that I did not find it very amusing.....

When we got home I went straight for the bathroom. It's funny because I was expecting it to be like on TV where they pee on the stick and go back 5 minutes later to see what it said. But NOPE!! My test came back positive in like 30 seconds.

I was overwhelmed with happiness. I came out of the bathroom, showed Dallas the test, and he just hugged me. It was the best feeling in the world! To know that finally I was going to be a mother! That I would get to have kids with the love of my life, and that we were finally going to embark on the next journey of life together. I felt complete. I felt blessed. I felt special....to think that I, of all people (who am I?), would be able to bear children. I think I cried for like 30 minutes straight! This was the best feeling in the world.

Whenever Dallas and I had talked about having kids in the past, he always had some excuse as to why the timing wasn't right. We were still in school, he didn't have a job, he wanted to have a house.....and so on. Well, things were finally starting to happen. Dallas had graduated school and had been earning a Salary for some time. We put an offer on a house, and not two weeks later I found out I was pregnant. This was by no means planned....at least not then. We knew it would be time in the near future, but it happened much sooner than anticipated.

After a few days of knowing I was pregnant and thinking of the circumstances in which it happened, I knew that this baby was meant to come at this time. Now, to look back on how it all happened, Dallas and I can agree that we wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

I went for my first Doctors appointment at 12 weeks and we were able to hear the baby's heartbeat. I remember looking at Dallas and seeing this look of wonder and excitement on his face. It became very real to both of us that day that there really was a baby in there and we were responsible for it. It was a great feeling.

Here I am at 16 weeks, 1 day. Just barely started to sport a little bulge :) We learned that Fetal Fotos can tell you the gender of your baby at 16 weeks, so the night of my 16 week mark we went in.

This was so much fun. It was our first ultrasound. I can't explain the wonder at seeing my baby for the first time. You moms know what I'm talking about. It took the tech a while to be able to tell what the gender was because the baby had it's fingers/hand down between it's legs for most of the time. Finally the baby moved them and the tech was able to let us know that we were going to have a little girl!! (That's why I am wearing a pink shirt in that picture up there)

It was weird, because my whole pregnancy up to this point I felt very strongly that I was going to have a boy. I even dreamed that Dallas was holding our little boy. So to find out that it was a girl was a huge surprise. Dallas was elated!! He is excited to have a little Daddy's girl. And he has already gone above and beyond his fatherhood duties thus far to let her know that he loves her. It's so much fun to see him during this whole thing. He is going to be a great dad!

This is a face shot of our little girl. I don't have the other pictures of her girl-ness loaded on this computer, sorry.

Pregnancy for me had been very easy and enjoyable up to this point. I never had any morning sickness, thank goodness. I did get tired easily, but that's to be expected. So no real complaints yet :)

Here I am at 21 weeks and 5 days. By this point I could afford to wear maternity pants, but could still fit into my regular jeans with an elastic around the button. I remember actually feeling pregnant at this point. I could finally feel her moving and kicking inside me. She was like a little ninja child! Sooo active all the time. I think I first remember feeling her kick around 19 weeks. You know, just those little quickening, fluttery feelings. Almost just like you have gas. Those lasted for a couple of weeks, and then one night, it was like she had eaten her wheaties for breakfast :) I was lying in bed and felt/saw my whole belly move. She kicked me, and hard! I was so excited because now Dallas would be able to feel her, too! I found that I could really get her kicking if I laid on my back for a few minutes. Dallas loved being able to finally feel her.

The next few weeks passed without much excitement.

This is Christmas Eve. I was 25 weeks and 2 days pregnant. It's crazy how much I had grown in just 4 weeks! Maternity clothes were getting to be a must right about then....

I went in for my glucose test at 28 weeks, 6 days which came back normal. I didn't think it was that bad. In fact, the little drink was pretty good!

Here I am....the most recent picture I have. 30 weeks 1 day. I've almost gained 30 pounds. Holy Cow! I feel huge. I have two major complaints at this point. The ribs on my right side constantly burn. You know that burn when you have a really tight muscle and it just burns?? My ribs feel like that all the time. It's not even where she is pushing up into them, which is strange. It's on the right side under my arm. Dallas says that is the stress point of the rib and that could be why they always hurt. Also, I feel like I can't breathe hardly at all. I still have 9 weeks left and I know it's only going to get worse, but it's not a fun thing to deal with. I feel short of breath a lot, like I'm not getting enough oxygen. It's kind of scary and makes me nervous. But everything I read about it says it's normal, and my doctor said that as well. I don't like it. But things could be worse, so I really can't complain.

The baby still moves a lot, but I can tell that the movements are different than just kicks and jabs. She still does that, but now I can feel her turning from side to side it seems like. I can also feel distinct body parts poking me. It seems like here favorite thing to do is stick her foot or her knee right into my belly button. One night about 2 weeks ago I was lying on the couch next to dallas and I could totally feel her little foot just pushing out. It was so neat! This was the first time I had felt a body part. We had fun pushing on her and feeling her. Eventually I fell asleep, but Dallas said he sat there and they pushed back and forth for at least 30 minutes. He would push on her, and then she'd push back. He said they had a real "daddy daughter moment." Cute huh? I thought so :)

We are getting our nursery together and it's coming along very nicely. I have been doing a lot of bargain shopping, because I think that it's ridiculous what the stores charge for furniture and bedding. We got our crib off Overstock.com for a fraction of the price of what Babies R Us charges with free shipping! We also got our bedding and stroller off Amazon for the same kind of deal. I'm feeling pretty good about our bargain finds.

For Christmas I told Dallas all I wanted was a rocking chair for the nursery. Money was tight this year so he did something that meant so much! He found an old glider on KSL.com for next to nothing. He re-painted it, had it re-upholstered, and reinforced the bolts n'such and fixed it up all nice. He did the same thing with a dresser. Needless to say, Christmas morning was full of tears on my part. It meant so much that he put so much heart and time into something for me and for our baby. Like I said, he's going to be a great dad! Here are some pictures of the nursery thus far.

We are planning to paint sometime in the near future to match the bedding colors. I want to do something fun, but am not creative at all! If anyone has any suggestions, send them my way!!

And here's our travel system. Not really much to say about it.............

Well, hopefully that gets you all caught up with our pregnancy and what's been going on. I can't wait to meet our little girl!