Hi Everyone,

I will put new pics of my belly up soon.. hopefully this weeked.  We have so much going on right now. We get the keys to our new house this week, and we have to start packing to be out of our current place by 10/16. We have so much to do!

We found out we will be having a little baby boy, and so far the decision is to name him Alexander Patrick, Alex for short. I have always loved that name. I am up a little less than 5 pounds, and it seems to be all belly and boobs. I feel great, just a little tired from getting up every 2 hours to pee. My only complaint is that I can no longer  sleep in my preferred position of sleeping on my stomach, I have to sleep on my left side now *sigh*. Everything else is going great.  Patrick is ecstatic that there will be a little Patrick in the house to help him do “man” things like work on the car and go to Home Depot I guess.

I have enclosed some pictures taken yesterday. Enjoy!

Alex is on his head, and he is measuring at 5 ounces already when he is only supposed to measure 3 1/2, I know he will just be a big baby!

 

Alex really loves being on his head. He has his legs open and you can see his little penis. I am sure this will be the only time in his life where this would be appropriate.

This one is a little blurry because he was moving around so much, but this is a 4d image and you can see that his hands are next to his face and his mouth is open like he is yawning.

They pulled in my due date from April 1 to March 25 and I will be officially 4 months pregnant this week. I have only gained 2.8 pounds so far, but still am not showing much yet. Hopefully, my pregnancy will be noticeable by my 5th month mark, so I can start showing it off already! :) During my exam, they determined based on measurements and blood results that our baby screened negative for Down syndrome and Trisomy 13 and 18, which are both chromosomal abnormalities. *sigh of relief*. I have enclosed some pictures of the sonogram.

This picture is of the baby with his legs up resting on the “dash” as the sonogram operator put it. Obviously, the “dash” is my uterine wall. You can see his head makes up for 50% of his body length, which is normal and becomes less noticable as the pregnancy continues on.

 

 

 

 

You can see the baby’s face close up and his hand waving Hi!

  I know it has been a while since my last update, but there is definitely a difference from the last post. My morning sickness has subsided, and so has the fatigue, so I was able to start my work out routine again this weekend minus the ab crunches. So far, this is my favorite month of pregnancy! I can still wear all my clothes, but I suspect I will need to buy at least a couple pairs of maternity pants in the next few weeks. I have gained 2 pounds as well, but they say that up to 5 pounds the first trimester is normal.  I asked the doctor at my visit this past week when I should actually look pregnant and not look as if I just ate a big lunch and he said in the next 4 weeks, which would put me at a little over 4 months. As far as other changes, I don’t really have any cravings, but I especially like to eat quesadillas now more than I ever have. I have been wearing a 36D now for the last couple of weeks, and I think I will go up at least another size before this pregnancy is over.

   I had my third sonogram on Thursday, and “Baby Walnut” was measuring at 12 weeks 3 days, when he should have only been measuring 11 weeks! I’m either a bit ahead in pregnancy than we thought, or we are going to have a huge baby, personally, I think it is the latter. We will find out whether they will pull in my due date by the 20th week when they start measuring my uterus. During the sonogram, the baby was dancing around, kicking his legs, and punching his arms out. I could see the little fingers and toes. He is so cute.

   Patrick has a new nickname for the baby which is “my little linebacker” he is utterly convinced it is a boy whereas I think it is a girl… although I am secretly hoping for a boy too, so for now we are calling the baby he until we find out in 7-9 weeks. We are really excited to find out, so I can start buying baby clothes.

   October 1st marks my 4th month (14 weeks) and we will be officially done being in the danger zone for miscarriage. Just a couple more weeks.:) I can’t promise to update every week, it has especially hectic with school starting and new responsibilities at work, but I will definitely update around my 4-month mark. Wish us luck!

 

 

I went to the doctor’s to have my first sonogram and discovered I was a week further along than I thought. I used the calculators provided online and to my surprise discovered their inaccuracy. Apparently, the day you would have started your period is actually week 4 of a woman’s pregnancy! I was quite shocked to learn that and to think most women don’t even know they are pregnant until well into their second month. However, the MOST AMAZING thing happened during the sonogram, the doctor discovered the baby’s heart was beating very strongly! It was so awe inspiring to know that my body can create a life that has a heart beat in as little as 6 weeks, as I could see the little flickering on the monitor. WOW! Patrick later said it was the most amazing thing he had ever seen.

I have been very concerned about miscarriage, so I asked the doctor what are my chances statistically and she said, “Once the baby’s heart is beating, you have less than a 1% chance of miscarriage.” You have no idea how good that made me feel. Nevertheless, I am not out of the danger zone yet, she said that 12 weeks is considered the highest risk for miscarriage, so just four more weeks, and I should pretty much be in the “safe zone” as I am dubbing it. In addition, all the while, Patrick was there supporting me and even gave the baby a nickname, Walnut. He said that is what the baby looked like and actually think it’s a really cute name.

     Five to Eight weeks is considered a woman’s second month of pregnancy, so in just three weeks I will already be three months! It seems to be going by so fast. As you can see from my picture, I am showing a little bit in the lower abdomen area. I can still wear all of my clothing, but there are some shirts that I am opting not to wear. I will also be picking up a couple of larger bras as my current ones don’t seem to fit as well as they used to.

     I think I am experiencing every pregnancy symptom in the book. I started to get the morning sickness this past Sunday and it pretty much lasts all day long, so I am not quite sure why they call it “Morning” sickness, when in fact it should be called, “Every Day, All Day Sickness”. I read that this is a sign of a healthy pregnancy, so while I hate feeling like this, I know it’s for the best and it’s a reassuring sign that the baby is OK. The extreme fatigue has continued. I feel like I could pretty much sleep all day if I allowed myself to, but at least I have been getting an average of 9-10 hours of sleep a night. I don’t know how women do it with other younger children, and tip my hat to them! I have gotten some moodiness, but instead of being a Super $^#@&, I have instead been unusually happy, beaming if you will. I am really just so happy about this baby.

As soon as I can figure out how to put the sonogram picture on here, I will. The computer is not cooperating with me very well. To all my friends and family, thank you for your support! I will better about updating more regularly; it’s just been such a hectic couple of weeks!

 

So like most women, we dream of what we will name our children one day, so after only three weeks of pregnancy, I pretty much solidified what we are going to name our future son or daughter. Although, I have a gut feeling it will be a girl after the havoc she has put me through this week! I will tell you later about all that on my weekly update. So here are the names, let me know what you think.

Girl:

Audriana Casey Wallin  – Audriana is after my grandma Audrey and Casey is my mother’s maiden name and the side I take after. I have always thought Casey was a cute girl’s name!

 

Boy:

Connor Patrick Wallin- Strong Irish name and the middle name of course after the father to be.

Yes, here is my 3-week belly and I am already showing! It isn’t much, but considering my stomach is usually flat, there is definitely a baby growing inside of me. I haven’t had any morning sickness yet (thank god), a lot of breast tenderness and the fatigue have set in. I would also venture to say (and so will Patrick) that my breasts have started to get fuller. Last night, Patrick and I set out to go to dinner and see a movie, but after dinner around 8:30, I was ready to go to bed and sleep I did.  Needless to say, we did not see the movie, but instead got a good 12 hours of sleep. Patrick is very happy about our new sleep schedule. All in all, it has been a pleasant pregnancy, and we are very excited about all the new changes my body will be going through!