Who's got the magic? Well, I do.

Well, I am going on week 12 of my pregnancy and I am feeling so blissful. Tomorrow, I have my monthly appointment with Dr. Chandler and I'm thinking it's just going to be some routine stuff. You know the usual, dropping the cup again, getting weighed in and having blood drawn like the vampire victim I have become. Tomorrow also commences what I like to call The Foodapalooza Extravaganza aka Thanksgiving week aka every pregnant woman's dream. We've got dinner at my best friend, Emily's, tomorrow afternoon, Mom and Maddie and I will be enjoying Old Chicago when we pick up Maddie in Wichita on Wednesday, Thanksgiving at Josh's grandma's on Thursday and my mom's late Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. It's safe to say that this mama will be a happy mama. Copious amounts of deviled eggs, my mother in law's famous chicken and noodles and pumpkin pie.

We (when I say "we" I mean "I") finally came up with a theme that we like for the nursery if the baby is a boy. One of my favorite stories is The Little Prince. It's originally a french story called Le Petit Prince and we read it in one of my French classes in college and it's about this little boy, a prince, and he lives on this planet where he is greeted by grown ups. He gives them advice on how they should live their lives and he shows them how he lives on this planet so far away. There's some really beautiful illustrations in the book and the little boy has messy blonde hair and reminds me of what our child might look like since Josh had light blonde hair when he was a kid. And the theme we have had picked out for a while for the girl's room is Alice in Wonderland, complete with tea pots, hats, clocks and quotes and illustrations from the story. We have been preparing more for that one, collecting tea pots of different whimsical designs and finding all the illustrations to display and even a neat mobile with a danging tea pot, cups and spoons.

I've also been obsessively searching the internet for maternity/photographer blogs and how they display each week of their pregnancies and I have found so many ideas that I can't wait to start once this belly gets a little bigger. This is one of the videos I found on a photographer's blog who was capturing his wife's pregnancy with their second child and I fell in love with it. Hopefully Josh will get a little more familiar with my camera and help me with this project because he's going to have to know how to use the camera in the delivery room since I will be a bit busy at that moment.

Magic- A Belly Grows from The Panic Room Videos on Vimeo.

How far along? 12 weeks
Total weight gain: Won't find that out until tomorrow
Maternity clothes? My maternity jeans are waaaaay baggy in the legs, but so comfy in the stomach
Stretch marks? I foresee more showing up in my future.
Sleep: Naps are becoming more frequent in the afternoons...could going to the Breaking Dawn midnight premiere a few days ago be the blame?
Best moment this week: My mom finally having a dream that we're having a Gracie May
Miss Anything? I've been missing Megan a lot and wishing she was here to see everything happening.
Movement: All is quiet in the tummy.
Food cravings: Nothing out of the ordinary, like pickled eggs or the smell of gasoline. :p
Anything making you queasy or sick: Not eating soon after taking my thyroid medicine
Gender: 3 more weeks till we find out!
Labor Signs: No
Symptoms: Still tired
Belly Button in or out? In
Wedding rings on or off? On
Happy or Moody most of the time: HAPPY
Looking forward to: December 12th :)

Officially 11 weeks (but according to my husband, I am only "two days pregnant")

During week nine, I started keeping a photo belly log in my cell phone and will probably start sharing my belly with the world once it's more prominent. Right now, it just looks like I won the award for eating the most pizza bagels. But, I still get excited about the ever growing belly. And I love how Josh reacts to it. In the kitchen this morning, we were talking while he was making breakfast and he was making fun of me because I kept looking down at my belly. He poked at my belly, showed a surprised face and then felt my belly with his whole hand and said, "Wow, your belly is hard!" Those little moments with him are some of the most special to me.

In two days, we can start moving into our new two bedroom apartment! We're staying in the same apartment complex, but instead, we'll be downstairs and there will be an extra bedroom for Baby Woodward. We went and looked at it the other day and I got so excited when I walked into the second bedroom and started imagining what the baby's room would look like and where the crib would be and other various details. Another part that got me excited: the master bedroom is even bigger than our present one and the closet is a WALK IN CLOSET! EEEK! When Josh saw that, he pointed at the largest side of the closet and said, "This is where aaaaaall of your clothes will go." He he.

Speaking of clothes, with my stomach being a little bloated thing right now, I am in the transition between being able to wear my regular jeans with the button undone and when I'm feeling the need...the need for comfort, I wear my super comfy maternity jeans or my personal favorite, my maternity leggings. Oh my sweet Jesus, where have maternity leggings been all my life? SO COMFY! I am so excited about transitioning into having a bigger belly and being adorable in my cardigans and dresses and sweaters and all that winter magic. Plus, I finally ordered some awesome boots today (since all mine were blown away in the tornado; thanks midwest weather!), so let's start making a presence, baby belly!

For a girl's name, we have chosen Gracie May and have had that name decided since before we even got pregnant. The morning that Megan passed away, I told Josh later that day that I wanted to name our first daughter Gracie after my sister since she was Megan Grace. Later on, Josh came up with the middle name "May" and not only have we both loved that name, but everyone around us loves it, too. For a boy, I love the middle name Dean, but Josh doesn't want to carry on the "Dean" legacy since his middle name is Dean and so is his dad's and grandpa's. We still can't figure out a first name we both like for a boy. Every suggestion I come up with isn't masculine enough; for example I love the name Henry Dean. I think it's such a classic name, but Josh always finds an excuse for the name or why it's a lame name.

How far along? 11 weeks
Total weight gain: At this point, I have lost 5 pounds so far!
Maternity clothes? Loving my maternity leggings and trying not to parade around in sweats all day
Stretch marks? ha! I had stretch marks before I got pregnant, so that's nothing new to moi.
Sleep: till like eleven am most mornings!
Best moment this week: hearing my mom yell, "hey baby!!" to my stomach. :)
Miss Anything? not having to worry about drinking too much caffeine and having my caffeine nazi husband yell at me. lol.
Movement: none yet, but I'm excited for when that does happen.
Food cravings: lunch, I craved pizza hut and dinner, all I could think about was a chimichanga
Anything making you queasy or sick: the smell of eggs and certain areas of the grocery store
Gender: 5 more weeks till we find out! :D
Labor Signs: No
Symptoms: Just lots of fatigue and nausea if I don't take my thyroid medicine
Belly Button in or out? In
Wedding rings on or off? On
Happy or Moody most of the time: HAPPY
Looking forward to: my belly getting bigger and moving in a couple of days

Now I must end this post because I have been craving a chimichanga from Maria's and Josh is finally home! :)

First ultrasound

My first ultrasound was the afternoon of Monday, October 24th. My mom met up with me at the appointment since Josh had a monster job that he had to start that day. I figured I'll have plenty of appointments in the next 6 and a half months that he can attend. Plus, I was really excited that my mom's first appointment with me was my first ultrasound. It was pretty routine like any other appointment before the ultrasound. They weighed me and, to my surprise, I had lost five pounds! The nurse said they normally don't like that sort of thing in the beginning, but she saw how pumped I was, so she didn't say much more. And, of course, I gave them a sample in a hat. I don't know what it is, but I always get nervous before I do that and drop the cup while it's empty and I'm putting my name on it. Josh said at the first appointment, he heard the cup drop from the hallway and the nurses looked at my room with confused faces. Yes, I am a dork. Oops.

And after I embarrass myself by dropping the cup, I get into my ravishing paper gown and await the arrival of Dr. Chandler with mom. He comes in and we start the very short, wham bam! thank you ma'am, process of the ultrasound. When I say wham bam, I mean so fast, he didn't even let us hear the heartbeat. It wasn't quite the magical crying moment they portray in movies. My mom said she was hoping it was twins and told him about all the twins that run in our families and he responded that twins come from the mother's side and said it was a good thing she didn't gamble. Yes, this man was talking about gambling to my Pentecostal mother, but I digress. Nonetheless, we got to see the little peanut on screen and that made me as happy as ever. I also learned at this appointment that my body is producing too many thyroids, which could result in lacking brain development in the baby and miscarriage, so now I'm on some once a day medicine to balance that out.

Mom and I left the appointment and got to share an emotional hug in the parking lot while we looked at pictures of the little bean. I met up with Emily at Walgreens to retrieve my hard drive that I forgot at her house (pregnant brain!) and we looked at the pictures in every pregnant lady's favorite aisle: the candy aisle. I even drove to Kristin's when I got back into town and showed her and the kids the pictures. So, all of these people got to see the baby before Josh, which he didn't mind since I wanted to show him when he got home, which was late like usual. Before I showed him, I text him while he was still at work and said that I got to see our daughter or son on the screen today. His first question, "What does it look like?" I responded with a lima bean and he asked me some questions about the appointment. When we finally saw each other, we looked at all four of the pictures together and I told him our new due date, May 30th, 2012 and said the heartbeat was 181 bpm and Chandler said that everything looked great. I asked him if seeing the photos made everything more real and he smiled and said yes.

I am ten weeks and this baby is the size of a lime now. One of my current problems is taking my prenatals. I asked Josh if it would be alright if we just had a conehead baby and he gave me a "Josh" look and said I needed to take my prenatals. They make me more sick than the first few weeks of morning sickness ever did. Speaking of morning sickness, it seems to be not making such a presence anymore, which was nice, since I only had nausea and nothing ghastly like staying in the bathroom all hours of the day. WIN!