13 weeks and counting...

On Saturday, February 23rd, I turned 13 weeks pregnant!  Last week of my first trimester and I can't say that I'm sorry to see it go... nope, not even a little bit.  The only thing that has made these past few months even remotely okay to deal with is Justin.  Without him, I'd be hidden underneath a pile of laundry to the ceiling, dirty dishes all over the kitchen and I'd most certainly be eating Ramen noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Can you sense the amount of thankfulness I have for my husband?  Anywho, here are few quick pictures to show that my stomach hasn't "popped" yet but apparently, my arms have gotten very fat instead.  Bummer!  I hear the baby will be all worth it though...

Here's to the second trimester! Yahoo!

12 week appointment

Justin and I have eagerly awaited our 12 week appointment so we could finally hear this little baby's heartbeat and see him/her move around in there on the ultrasound.  Lo and behold, my insurance company won't pay for ultrasounds (what the heck?) and therefore, one was not covered for the 12 week appointment.  I was pretty bummed out as it has been 6 weeks since the last time we saw the little round blob on the screen.  We also learned that the testing we had decided to go ahead and do (NT testing, Trisomy 18, etc.) was not "scheduled" during this last appointment so we have yet another appointment to go this week for the ultrasound and blood work.  I can't help but really feel like my doctor's office dropped the ball.  Such is life, I suppose.

On the bright side, after what felt like an ETERNITY, my doctor found the heartbeat on the doppler! 163 beats per minute and it was worth every second I had to wait to hear it.  I was so nervous I kept laughing, and I'm pretty sure every time I did, the doctor lost the heartbeat again.  Apparently the baby is hiding somewhere very deep inside my abdominal cavity on the right side.  Hopefully he/she makes a much better appearance on Friday morning for the testing.  Keeping my fingers crossed the ultrasound technician will print out a picture or two :)

Other than that, nothing exciting to report!  Justin and I had a laid back weekend and celebrated a beautiful Sunday with friends and family at a BBQ in our backyard.  Ladderball was set up in the backyard and the guys grilled steaks, pasta salad and my yummy salted caramel butter bars definitely hit the spot! I also watched Meghan's little guy Chase during the day on Sunday and we had a wonderful day.  We went for a walk through the neighborhood and played for hours and hours until he crashed out for about an hour.  It was fun practice for the arrival of our little one some time in August/early September 2013.

I'll post pictures when I have some :)

Gestating, gestating, 1, 2, 3...

On Sunday, Justin and I announced our big news - we are expecting a baby! Since a large majority of our close friends and our family already knew, we decided to announce on Facebook in a fun way.  We had our friend Shannon Lee take a cute photo of us (pictured below) to tell the internet world a baby was on the way.  We are both over the moon and so excited to start this journey together!  Justin is thinking pink and so am I.  He really wants a boy, but he has a "feeling" it's a girl.  I'm completely fine with that "feeling" as I'd love to dress up a little girl in ribbons and curls and spend my time at ballet practice instead of Little League! I guess we'll see, right? We will be ecstatic no matter what and I'm sure, with time, I will find myself enjoying dinosaurs and T-ball more than I thought I would!

Baby Smith is due August 31, 2013.  I am 11 weeks 3 days today (2/12/13) and we have our next appointment on Monday.  It seems like it has been such a long time since our previous appointment and I'm extremely excited to hear the heartbeat.  We will have a gender ultrasound at 18 weeks but we might just shell out the extra money and go to an ultrasound center at 15-16 weeks to get a sneak peek.  I don't know if I can wait another 3 weeks!

I'm not showing as of yet but I wake up every morning wondering if my clothes will start feeling any tighter - so far, nothing!  I experienced some morning sickness (which is actually more like all-day and all-night sickness) for about 3 weeks, and had some pretty serious food aversion (gagging at raw meat, the smell of leftovers).  I'm happy that is starting to subside and I can enjoy life again.  I'm even getting part of my energy back which is wonderful because we have so many things we want to do to this little nugget's nursery!

I'll update again soon.
xoxo.