This past year has been very eventful, with our most important an life-changing event being the birth of our handsome little man, Carter. Since I have done such a poor job of updating our blog this year, I will be dedicating the next few blog posts to different aspects of preparing for and welcoming Carter into our family (I apologize for the lengthy posts and potential TMI, but I want to document everything for my own sake).
So back to the beginning (early in April 2012)...
One day, I woke up and had this thought/feeling, "I think I'm pregnant". At first I kind of brushed it off. I had just barely gone off birth control, and most people don't get pregnant that fast... that's what I kept telling myself. I didn't want to get my hopes up just because the thought popped into my head.
Well, a few days went by, and I just couldn't shake the feeling that I was pregnant. So I took a pregnancy test... negative. I was a little disappointed at the result, but I kept telling myself, "We haven't been trying that long anyway", and tried to move on.
About a week after taking the initial test, my "friend" was due to pay me a visit. One, two, three, four days and my "friend" never showed up! So I decided that I needed to retake the test.
It was late on a Sunday evening. Brady was doing eye exercises, which required the use of an eye patch (supposedly helps rebuild your vision without surgery, contacts, etc). I was reading in the other room, and decided I would retake the pregnancy test. As you can guess, it came up positive! Just to be sure, I tested again. Also positive!
I was so excited, but I wasn't quite sure what to do next. I wanted to tell Brady, but then I thought I should figure out some cute way to break the news to him like so many other people do, so I decided to keep it to myself for the time being.
I went to the junk room and pulled out my maternal-newborn health nursing book and started reading up on fetal development and such. After a few minutes hanging out in the junk room, Brady came in (I'm sure curious as to why I was spending so much time in there) and asked what I was doing (with his eyepatch still on, mind you).
"Reading", I said. "Reading what?" he probed. "About maternal health..." at that point, I was afraid he would put the puzzle pieces together on his own, plus I just wanted to tell him anyway, so I decided I would just break the news to him. "Come, I want to show you something", I said.
We walked back to the bathroom where I had stashed the pregnancy tests. I pulled them out and showed them to him, without saying anything. He stared (with one eye, as he STILL had the eyepatch on) for a few seconds. "What? Really?" he said in disbelief. I excitedly confirmed that I was, in fact, pregnant. He was still shocked, and kept saying, "Wow, really?". We started talking excitedly about it, but I had to interrupt him; "Brady, could you take the eyepatch off? I just can't take you seriously looking like a pirate".
We debated for a while when and how to announce it to our families. We decided on Mother's Day (I would be about 7 weeks along at that point), and we included the following printed announcement in the presents to both for our mothers.
We were Facetiming with my parents when my mom opened her gift. The announcement was at the bottom of the box underneath her presents. She opened the box and pulled out each item one at a time... but never pulled out the announcement or said anything; not quite the reaction we were expecting. She thanked us for the nice gifts, and I said, "Mom, there's something else in there..." She then looked at the announcement, and exclamations of excitement and joy quickly ensued. My dad and sister didn't know what was going on at first, but as they passed around the announcement, they quickly joined in the jubilation. :)
Brady's mom also missed the announcement at first glance. She pulled it out, glanced at it, and went on to the rest of the gift. She then did a bit of a double take, and looked at the card again, and at that point realized what was going on and started crying for joy. Needless to say, our announcement was the best of any Mother's Day gifts we gave this year.
Brady was also very sweet and got me my first official mother's day present: a beautiful Willow Tree statue. I love it!
I had a pretty low key, problem-free first trimester. I didn't ever feel particularly sick; there would just be some mornings when I woke up feeling slightly nauseous, but it was gone by the time I showered and ate breakfast. I was tired all of the time and just wanted to be lazy and sleep a lot. We had our first appointment with the midwife and got to hear the baby's heartbeat!
Second trimester was great! I had more energy, and even though I wasn't really that sick early on, I just overall felt better than before.
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| Our son is destined to love super heroes, if Brady has his way :) |
The week before the ultrasound to find out the gender, people started guessing what we were going to have. Up until this point, neither Brady or I had any inkling one way or the other. But when others would say they thought we were having a girl, I always had the feeling that they were probably wrong. :) Of course, we then found out we were having a little boy! As you can tell, Brady was pretty excited (we both were, of course).
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| See what I mean? Spiderman pants AND a Batman shirt.... |
The third trimester was very busy with work and prepping for the little one. Just before Thanksgiving, my blood pressure had started going up, and I was getting pretty swollen from retaining so much water. At first, the midwife simply recommended that I rest more, but she wasn't super concerned. Two weeks later, I went in for my 36 week appointment, and my blood pressure had significantly increased, to the point where they were concerned about pre-eclampsia. That day they did some blood work and had me complete a 24 hour urine collection test (which is SUPER fun, by the way). The results were supposed to come back by the end of the week. If they diagnosed pre-eclampsia, it was likely that I would have to be induced. :(
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| The crib completed |
I didn't hear anything on Friday, so I called the office on Monday. For some reason, they still didn't have the results back, but they said they were going to try and rush the results so we could have them back before my 37 week appointment on Wednesday.
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| A little yoga at 27 weeks pregnant |
This all leads up to Carter's birth story, and like any good writer, I've got to leave you with a cliff-hanger so you'll keep reading. ;) So what were the results? Do I have pre-eclampsia or not? Did I have to be induced? Stay tuned for the next post to find out!
And of course, this post would not be complete without the sequence of belly pictures. Enjoy!
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| 11 weeks |
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| 12 weeks |
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| 13 weeks |
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| 14 weeks |
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| 16 weeks |
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| 17 weeks |
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| 18 weeks |
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| 19 weeks |
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| 20 weeks - halfway! |
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| 21 weeks |
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| 22 weeks |
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| 23 weeks |
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| 24 weeks |
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| 26 weeks |
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| 27 weeks at Snoqualmie Falls |
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| 29 weeks |
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| 30 weeks |
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| Halloween :) |
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| 32 weeks |
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| 33 weeks |
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| 34 weeks |
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| 36 weeks |
"Reading", I said. "Reading what?" he probed. "About maternal health..." at that point, I was afraid he would put the puzzle pieces together on his own, plus I just wanted to tell him anyway, so I decided I would just break the news to him. "Come, I want to show you something", I said.
