12 weeks...at 14

Today I am now officially 14 weeks along. I can't believe how fast the time has been going. Before you know it, we'll have a family of 3! That's just crazy! Anyway, sorry for the delayed posting of my 12 week picture. I have had numerous requests from my friends out of state to see the progress of my belly from month-to-month and I just now downloaded the pictures onto my computer. I plan on taking a picture every 4 weeks so we can keep a record of how this pregnancy has unfolded.

As you can see from the picture below, I'm already starting to "pop"! Adam hates when I use that term because it scares him...he's so sweet :) All I can say is if that was me at 12 weeks, I can only imagine how quickly my belling is going to grow from now on. Every day, I look down and can't believe there's a little "Baby A" growing inside me. For those of you who don't already know, we've already picked out our baby names...both of which begin with A. Not sure why we were on an"A" kick, but it's nice to know that there won't be any surprises when it comes to names :)

That's all for now...until next time :)

Exciting Morning!

It's official! We just got done with our 12-week appointment and our baby has a strong heartbeat! It's amazing to think that our baby is only 2.5" long and yet, we can hear the heart already! We were a little nervous at first when our doctor couldn't find the heartbeat, but then she reassured us by telling us that our baby kept kicking the monitor away and that's why she was having troubles getting the heartbeat to come through on the doppler. Sounds like we have a stubborn little Libby on our hands :) Only a baby of mine would kick at a doctor as if to say "get out of here".

Anyway, we are absolutely thrilled to hear that our baby sounds great and that everything is right on track. We'll have another appointment in 4 weeks where we'll hear the heartbeat again, and then another one 4 weeks after that to have our first ultrasound and find out what we're having. I've had several dreams already of having a baby girl, but I would be absolutely ecstatic for both Adam and my dad if we were to have a boy! Maybe this baby will prove my premonition-like dreams wrong! I guess we'll see.... Just so you know, though, they haven't failed me yet with each of Meredith's pregnancies :)

Also, I've had several requests for pictures, and I'm sorry for being so forgetful. Adam and I are already planning on taking my "12-week" picture tonight, so I promise to post a picture soon. There isn't much to see yet, but it will be neat tracking my progress every 4 weeks or so to see how much my belly changes. It's obviously changed enough so that I have to wear maternity pants every day :) I'm not complaining...this is the most comfortable I think I've ever been in dress pants and jeans!

Pants without zippers...

I never thought I'd be so happy to start wearing pants without zippers! My mom and I went shopping this past weekend to find me the first of many maternity clothes. After a long few days in Phoenix for work, wearing pants that are getting entirely too tight, I figured it was time to buy paneled pants. I think I've made a good dent at finding replacement clothes for the ones I already have that may be "too obvious" (since I haven't told hardly anyone at work) and for those that just plain don't fit :) I thought I'd be more upset about getting bigger, but actually it's been kind of fun. It's neat to see my belly get a little bigger each week and know that it's not because I'm getting fat :) I haven't been doing a good job taking pictures of myself to show my progress, but I promise I will start doing that soon. I can't wait to see the transformation unfold!

Special Delivery on 9/24/08!

This will probably be my longest post, but I have a lot of catching up to do to bring everyone up to speed now that I'm 9 weeks and 1 day pregnant!

On January 13th, Adam and I officially found out that we're having a baby! We started trying at Christmas, so we were pretty amazed that we were able to get pregnant so quickly! We are so blessed and so excited to have our first child! Our baby is due September 24th, which is the same day as Abby Methven and Christian Hexum's birthdays...but it's also the same day as the Mid-Am Championship for Adam's work :) That wasn't very good timing, but that's life.

Mommy & Daddy T0-Be after telling my Dad

The first few weeks of my pregnancy were some of the most painful days I've experienced in a long time. The abdominal pain associated with all the changes my body was going through was so excruciating that I was forced to take several warm baths a day just to help the pain subside. During my first week of pain, I was so concerned that there was something wrong that I made an emergency appointment with my provider. She did a full exam including an internal ultrasound to confirm whether or not I had a ruptured ovarian cyst or an ectopic pregnancy. Thankfully, all was well and my hormone levels were normal...I just had to fight through the pain and hope that things would get better.

On my Dad's birthday on January 26th, we decided to tell our families the good news that a new baby would be joining our clan. Adam was in Phoenix the entire week, so I had to come up with my master plan to break the news. I decided to tell our parents with baby appropriate picture frames like the one below. My mom was so funny because she literally looked at the frame for about 30 seconds before she realized what the inside said. So, we had a busy day having lunch with my family to tell them, visiting Marissa at her house to tell her, and then having dinner with Adam's parents to let them know that they were finally going to be grandparents!

One of my dad's birthday presents

On February 15th, Adam and I had our first "official" doctor appointment. Before we got pregnant, I decided that I would go to the Paul Larson OB/GYN clinic since it came highly recommended by Meredith. My doctor, Dr. Leitgen, is great and both grew up in Bloomington and went to the U of M, so we've had a lot to talk about. Everything at our appointment went great and we even set our next appointment for March 14th. At that appointment, we'll get to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time, so we're super anxious for that!

Well, that's all for now until we have more updates :)