She kicked me!

Leia has been able to feel "flutters" of baby movement for a couple of weeks now, but it wasn't anything that I could be a part of. That changed last night. Leia and I were both sitting on the couch and Leia asked for a piece of chocolate. (My mom had given us a bag of dark chocolates when we visited my family last weekend.) Just a few minutes after Leia ate the chocolate the baby started kicking. (I assume this means that my daughter will love chocolate just as much as her mother and I already do.) Leia put her hands on her own stomach to see if she could feel the kicks from the outside and she could. So then Leia put my hands where she was feeling the kicks. Of course that meant that our daughter immediately moved to another spot and stopped kicking. (Which is a sign that she will be as non-cooperative and hard-headed as both her mother and I already are.)

This set up a cycle of, "She's kicking again, put your hand here", and then waiting for several minutes while nothing happened, giving up and taking my hand away, and then she would kick somewhere else. After about the third go-round I was convinced that it was going to be a while before I was able to feel anything, but it finally happened. I had my hand in the right place at just the right time and I felt my daughter kick the ring finger of my left hand. I will never forget that moment. It was something that I didn't know I wanted to experience so badly until after it happened. I was giddy the rest of the night and I couldn't stop smiling about it.

So far, my experience with my Leia's pregnancy has been a series of punctuated moments that make me increasingly "aware" of the reality of the situation. The positive pregnancy test, our first visit to the OBGYN, the first ultrasound pictures, revealing the news to our families, finding out that "our baby" is "our daughter" and now my first real, physical interaction with my little girl. Every step along the way has been amazing and I can't wait for the next one. We are past the half-way mark at 21 and 1/2 weeks and I know that soon will come the biggest milestones of all: hearing her cry, seeing her face, holding her in my arms, kissing her forehead, and finally, revealing her name to our family and friends. But that will all have to wait until the proper time. For now, I have just this message for my daughter:

"I know who you are, small one. Your mother and I have named you, and you are forever on our hearts and minds. I promise to care for your mother, and she has pledged to care for you, while you grow bigger and stronger every day. I know who you are, my darling daughter, and I have felt your touch. Take care, little girl, your mother and I love you, and we will see you soon."

Baby Furniture

My co-worker brought in all the pieces to the crib today! I brought it home and Tim immediately assembled it so we could see what it is going to look like and also to ensure that we had all the pieces. Here are the pictures:

Here is Tim putting it together.

Tim is holding up the guard rail. The hinge has a lot of screws so we decided not to attach it.

This crib will convert to a toddler bed and then into a full-sized bed.

I also picked up from someone else at Samford a changing table for FREE about a week and a half ago. I cleaned out the baby's closet that weekend and put a bunch of stuff on the changing table that we are going to use for her. I have since jokingly referred to it as her shrine. At the time, it was the only piece of furniture I had for her so that's where I put everything.


This piece will also be painted antique white to match the crib.

That's all for now! We'll be in Augusta this weekend so there will probably not be any new posts until next week.

19 Weeks

On Wednesday, we'll reach the half-way mark. It is really hard to believe that we're already half-way there. This past week has been a whole lot of fun since we found out the baby's gender. I decided right away that I wanted a light purple room with yellow accents. I started looking online at Target and Babies R Us for bedding. First of all, I quickly experienced sticker shock. Why should a bumper and some sheets cost nearly $200? Then I realized that baby girl linens only come in pink, brown, or some incredibly bright colors these days so I decided to look on Craig's List. Lo and behold, I found exactly what I was looking for! I contacted the lady and Tim and I went to get them yesterday afternoon. Here are the pictures:

The top part of the picture shows the bumper and the bottom part is a duvet which she won't need for quite sometime.

This is the crib sheet.

This is the bed skirt.

Tim and I are talking about painting the furniture in the room an antique white and adding purple and yellow accents to them. I'm also hoping we'll have time to paint the walls a light purple color. These linens will also work well with a number of homemade knitted blankets I received while growing up and a brand new yellow one my mom is knitting.

Many of you have been asking for pictures of my baby bump so here they are:

15 weeks

17 weeks

19 weeks

I've been feeling well and I have gained a total of 9 pounds on my home scale. I'm experiencing the usual pregnancy aches and pains but overall, I feel great. We got a phone call on Thursday letting us know that the Quad-screen they drew blood for on Monday came out fine which means they did not detect any birth defects so overall a great week.

Let the "stuff buying" commence!

After we found out we were having a girl, Leia, her mother and I all went to Babies "R" Us to start spending money. No sense delaying the inevitable! We were very restrained and just spent most of our time browsing, but each of us did pick out an outfit to take home. Leia's mother found this beautiful dress with purple flowers. Leia's favorite color is purple, so I think this is something that we will see on our little girl quite often.



Go see the outfits that Leia and I picked out

Leia found a cute blue onesie, and I chose a green dress with cherries on it. It reminds me of some dresses that my sisters had when they were kids. I'll have to try and look through old photos to see if I can find a picture of one of them in it, but I'm pretty sure I remember something similar.

I would love to post up some more, but that will have to wait for tomorrow. It is after 8 o'clock my time and I haven't eaten dinner yet. I've been on the phone and the computer since I got home. More great stuff tomorrow...

It's a GIRL!!!

This morning Leia had another ultrasound and found out that we are going to have a baby girl! Leia's mother was there in the room with us, so that made it even more exciting to find out. I've been calling family and friends since this morning, but I still have some more people to call, so this will be a short post for now. I just wanted to post up a link to the pictures that we got from the visit this morning. Captions on the pictures and comments will come later.

LINK TO ULTRASOUND PICTURES

And here is one picture for folks who don't know how to follow links. (Note: This is a 4D picture and we only have one of these. Very cool, but also a bit creepy...)