The Day I've Been Waiting For...

... is finally here!!

I had my 12 week ultrasound followed up by a midwife appointment today. As I'd shared earlier, I kept having fears that something was wrong with Little Sprout and I was waiting to see if everything was okay. I was nervous about going to the appointments alone just in case I got bad news (Aaron doesn't have any time off because he just started his job) but luckily everything went well.

All of my fears and worry was for nothing. As soon as my ultrasound tech, Bailey, started the scan, I saw Little Sprout's heart beating fast and furious as ever...and as an even more precious gift, I got to hear it today! It was a strong 163 BPM! Yay!

Also, LS is a mover and a shaker!! Holy cow! I've never seen a baby move so much this early!! We got to see LS kick me as his/her legs (and arms!) were flailing all over the place... and he/she was using my uterus as a trampoline! We saw Little Sprout literally bouncing up and down. It was such a treat! The placenta is posterior this time (with both of the boys it was anterior--in the front of the uterus rather than the back) so she said it's no surprise with the activity she saw today that I'm already feeling movement. I'm actually feeling little pops as we speak! We got some great pictures of LS stretching out his/her legs which look super long. I'm so surprised that we got such great pictures... we were clearly able to see LS's legs, knees, and feet! Wow!

So far all of the measurements look really good and I'm pretty positive that my risk for genetic disorders is low. They also did a blood panel to send off and they said they'd call me within a week and a half with the results. All in all, LS looks totally healthy...and I'm super grateful. Phew!

My midwife appointment was really nice too. The person who was supposed to be there before me didn't show, so I was able to sit down and chat with my midwife and her student assistant for over an hour. I got all my questions answered and I just felt great. I'm so confident that I made the right choice. She also tried to get LS's heartbeat on her doppler, but there was a lot of static and she couldn't find it, but since I heard it at the ultrasound, I was fine with that.

...ooh, just felt another kick! Wow, this baby is CRAZY active! How can I feel kicks and pops so strongly at just 12 weeks?? Amazing... :)

Anywho, here are the pictures they printed out for me today. I'm amazed at how much Little Sprout has grown! The first picture is hilarious... when Bailey first started the scan and we saw the profile, I was a little concerned that my baby had a gigantic nose, but Bailey laughed and said that actually it's the baby's hand up by his/her face. I guess LS likes to snuggle with his/her hand because he/she stayed that way with that hand up in its face almost the entire time. You can tell the difference once LS moved his/her hand for the other pictures (in which you can also clearly see LS's bent legs to the left of the picture...complete with knees and feet!)

My next midwife appointment is scheduled for August 23rd and we get to have our anatomy scan on September 22nd, but we won't find out Little Sprout's sex until September 25th for sure.

My mind is playing tricks...

This is just really a random thought that I've been having lately. It could mean absolutely nothing, but it's truly bugging the hell out of me.

So, obviously I am pregnant. I haven't made much of a secret of it which is usually unwise until you've hit the "safe point" (not that there's ever really a point in pregnancy where you are exempt from any complications...) because then your chances of a miscarriage are way down and your chances of carrying a healthy baby are increased. It's pretty common knowledge that it's hard for me to keep my mouth shut when I'm pregnant so I let the cat out of the bag a wee bit earlier than I typically would. Well, lately I've had thoughts of miscarriage on my mind and I don't know why.

I'm a member on Babycenter and have been since I found out I was pregnant with Jayden. Not one time with him or Jax did I ever really give much thought to miscarriage. Not because I thought it didn't happen often, but I just never really felt any reason to worry that my pregnancies were conflicted at all...and sure enough I carried both of them to term without problems. For some reason I've been thinking awfully hard about miscarriage the last couple weeks with Little Sprout. I haven't been given any reason to worry except for the spotting at 5 weeks but even then I was told everything was perfectly fine. However, something has me truly paranoid and I just can't put my finger on it.

There's been a lot of miscarriage threads the past few weeks on my birth board, but even that's not unusual...same thing happened on Jayden & Jaxson's birth boards. So why now? Some people say that moms just know, like they have intuition... so then that has me even more paranoid because I never really gave miscarriage any thought when I was pregnant with the boys and I had no problems. But with LS I keep thinking about it and it makes me think "Is something wrong with Little Sprout?" or "Am I going to have a miscarriage?". Chances are probably not, but these days counting down to my next ultrasound are driving me to the brink of insanity.


Another thing is that between this upcoming ultrasound and the last one I had is roughly 6 weeks... that's a huge margin of time for something to go wrong. Sure, we saw Little Sprout's flickering heartbeat at 6 weeks & 4 days... but will we see it on Monday? Or will it be gone? So many women on my board are saying that they saw the heartbeat at their first ultrasound and then the baby just stopped at their next one. Will that be me? With the boys I didn't have an ultrasound until my 8th week of pregnancy. Sure, it's not at the "safe point", but it's still closer than 6 weeks. Both are considered early pregnancy, but 6 weeks is really early. And each week that you go with seeing a heartbeat gets you to a place where the odds are more in your favor.

Then I tell myself not to worry because I'm still having all my symptoms. My morning sickness is better some days, then worse on others. I never really had symptoms with the boys and I had great pregnancies, so then I reason with myself that because I'm still having my symptoms that Little Sprout must be okay. And I even swore up and down I felt some light flutters the other day (I felt them around this time with Jaxson as well). But then I hear about "missed miscarriages" where some women still have symptoms even after their baby has died.

All in all I know I just need to breathe. I just hate this whole early pregnancy stage where everything feels like a gamble... and I always play it safe. I don't like to gamble. As a matter of fact, I've never ever stepped foot into a casino to gamble. Not even the slots. I'm just anxiously waiting for Monday morning to roll around so that I can hopefully put my fears to rest... or receive news I wondered could be coming. Either way, I just want a solid answer. If I see that Little Sprout is still thriving and they can see a heartbeat then all of my fears will be completely gone and I'll feel confident without a doubt that I have nothing to worry about. So it's all about playing the waiting game again. Time is my worst enemy right now.

Please pray for me or keep me in your thoughts that I can have peace of mind between now and Monday morning and even more that Little Sprout is still thriving as he/she should be. I know these next 6 days are going to feel like an eternity.

Ah, welcome to the crazy mind of a hormonal, pregnant woman...

Splash Pad aka "Slide Pool"

As mentioned in yesterday's post, we took the kids to the Splash Pad & park at Willis Tucker Park over the weekend and both boys LOVED to play. Despite the nice day, the water was a bit chilly after a while but the boys had fun. :) Jayden has now nicknamed the Splash Pad the "slide pool" for some reason, and we just thought it was too cute to correct him. Also, this year it was fun to see Jaxson running around in the water. Last year he was just a small baby and didn't like the cold water. Since bath time is his favorite time ever, he had no qualms about running right in. After they dried off from the Splash Pad, we finished off the day on the play equipment there before heading home. Enjoy pictures from our day!!

Day Out With Thomas

Here are the pictures from our Friday outing to the "Day Out With Thomas" festival in Snoqualmie. You'll have to excuse the last one as it's watermarked by the company who was there taking pictures of the festival goers with Thomas. I was unable to get one of all of us on my personal camera (the guy would NOT use our camera to take a picture!) and I'm not sure I want to pay $17.95 for just one picture...lame!

Pictures From Last Week & What We've Been Up To

What are all these pictures from that I showed last week? Let me break it down for you here:

Monday was during one of our many car rides this summer so far. The kids and I were waiting for Daddy to pick something up at Target so we chilled in the car. The boys were so excited for our mini adventure and were having way too much fun in their car seats!

Tuesday and Wednesday were from our trip to Gig Harbor last month for cousins Elijah and Angelina's birthday parties/BBQ. The weather was gorgeous and the boys had so much fun diving into the berries and jumping in the bouncy house that Noelle and Adrian rented. Jaxson also had a blast swinging in the baby swing (while Big Bro Jayden tackled the slide) and running off with the birthday balloons. Jaxson loves balloons more than any kid I know... he goes wild!

Thursday and Friday are pretty obvious: Fourth of July (once again, in Gig Harbor!). We've been up in GH a lot lately. If it wasn't for our jobs keeping us here, Aaron and I'd be tempted to move there. It's so lovely. Anyway, we had a good time. Jax didn't really care about the fireworks, but Jayden thought they were awesome, so we made sure to get a lot of pictures of the first 4th celebration that he actually got into.

Saturday was from a recent trip to Cold Stone. It was particularly hot out that day and we thought it would be a nice way to cool down. I can't remember what kind of ice cream that Jaxson got (not like it mattered as he sampled everyone else's anyway) but Jayden got their Blueberry Ice Cream... he seemed to like it well enough (he loves blueberries) but I tried it and it was disgusting! I think I'll stick to my favorite Cake Batter ice cream...

Sunday was just some candid shots from the boys sleeping. With the heat wave we've had, the boys have wanted to sleep in the two rooms that have the fans: our room and the living room. The heat made the boys just pass out and for some reason I just can't help myself but take pictures of them sleeping. They are just too darn cute!


What have we been up to lately? Well, here it goes:

Everything on the job front is going well for both of us. Aaron seems to be enjoying his job so far. I know they spent a great deal of time training him on all aspects of the business, but I'm not sure if he's delved into actual PM work yet or not. Things at my job are the same: busy and relatively stressful, but still good. My boss is on vacation this week so it should give me plenty of time to get completely caught up.

On Friday, I took a half day at work and surprised both boys with a trip to the "Day Out With Thomas" festival in Snoqualmie. They both love Thomas and Friends so it was really fun for them. The jury's still out for me... it was smaller than I thought it would be and there wasn't as much there as I thought they'd have either, but the kids seemed to enjoy themselves, so that's all that really matters. I'm really excited for all the upcoming fairs though... the kids will really enjoy those. Anyway, we got to meet Sir Topham Hatt (barely, but we made it), there was live entertainment, food, and train tables. Jayden jumped in the bouncy house for a while and the boys even got temporary tattoos: Jaxson got Thomas and Jayden got Harold the Helicopter. Needless to say, I will also make sure next time that Aaron is with me. Both my mom and mother-in-law were late getting there so I had to chase after 2 children by myself while pushing my hearse of a stroller through big chunks of gravel and rocks in a large group of people in 90 degree weather...while also making sure I got enough video and pictures for my husband so he got to be part of the experience since he had to work. Let me just say this: Pain. In. The. Ass. Never again!!

All was well when we got to see Thomas though. Jayden absolutely LOVED the train ride which made the trip completely worth it. We got to pose with Thomas for pictures and the boys each got a cute little certificate. Pictures are to come... I uploaded them to my home computer and then cleared out my memory card, so I have to e-mail myself the pics from home.

Saturday, I went to my friend Devinne's baby shower while Aaron watched the kids. Devinne and I go to the same church and our kids are around the same age. Her oldest, Dylan, will be 3 in August (Jayden will be 3 in December), her daughter, Alana, will be 2 in September (Jax will be 2 in April), and she's due with their third, a boy named Isaiah, in August (while Little Sprout will be here in February). I see lots of play dates in our future... not to mention she lives just down the street!

Also, we took the kids to Willis Tucker Park after the baby shower since the weather was so nice. Jayden enjoyed it a lot, but Jax was too small to care last summer so this was the first time that he really got his feet wet (yes, the pun was intended!). He's such a water baby so I knew he'd love it. Jayden for some reason started calling the Splash Pad the "slide pool" which I find hilarious as it's not a pool and they don't have slides, but oh well. He's 2...and I'm not going to burst his bubble. We got some good pics, but for the same reason above, I can't post them until I e-mail them to my work computer.

Oh, and then my not so favorite thing... grocery shopping at night with the kids. They were maniacs trying to run through the store. We strapped them in the seats which prompted them to scream...and of course no shopping trip can be quick. I think the staff was more than happy when we left. Then... with two cranky kids who hadn't eaten dinner and it was 9:00 (yes, 9... trust me, we won't be doing THAT again) my husband couldn't find his debit card (this isn't surprising as he loses EVERYTHING!) so, after we had rung up all our food and it was loaded in our cart, I had to stay at Albertsons with our kids guarding our two carts of groceries while my husband tried to find his card. The lady had to shut down her register because of this and after all of that... my husband found his card under the car seat. Yeah, you know... not embarrassing at all, right?

Sunday was a relaxing day. Morning sickness came full force and I was useless most of the night, but I did manage to do some housework and make the meals for the day. Not that I could eat much of food myself. Sunday was just what I needed: a day to relax. :)

Also, coming up... next Monday we have our next midwife appointment and our Nuchal Translucency scan for Little Sprout. I cannot believe that I'm almost 12 weeks (I'm 11 weeks today)! It just seems like this pregnancy is flying by which makes it hard to enjoy it because I feel like I don't have as much time to savor every bit (well, I don't really want to savor the morning sickness, but at least everything else...). I'm very excited to see LS again and see how big he/she has grown since our last ultrasound. Plus, I always fear things like miscarriage even though I know my risk is low, I think I'll feel a lot better seeing and hearing a heartbeat at 12 weeks.

Well, I hope that everyone has a great week and I'll be back at some point this week (hopefully!) to update on our adventures this past weekend...with lots of pictures! :)

Speechless Sunday