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...)

Video link of surprising Leia's parents

Since Leia is posting about current events, I will continue to backfill the story of our baby secret and the big reveals. We decided to keep the fact that Leia was pregnant a secret for what seemed to be FOREVER. It was really hard to be with her family at Thanksgiving and not slip up and say something. I was sure I was going to screw it up, but somehow we both managed not to spill the beans. Time seemed to drag on forever, but eventually we got to Saturday December 20th. That was our first official day of vacation and we made the drive down to Fairhope to visit Leia's family.

We arrived at about lunch time and went out for some shrimp with Leia's mother. Her father was playing in a poker tournament down at the Elk's lodge, so we would have to wait until later in the evening to surprise them. It had been agonizing to wait for the previous 6 weeks, but once I knew we were so close to being able to tell them, it was actually kind of fun to sit across the table from Leia's mother at lunch and think to myself "You have no idea what's coming do you?"

Leia's father came home at about 6pm and after some short greetings we decided that we couldn't wait any more and decided to set the parents up for the big reveal. Leia had created a great plan for setting them up so that we could record the whole thing on video and get their reactions. This is the setup she came up with and we pulled it off without a hitch: Leia decided to repurpose a small photo album that her Nana (grandmother on her mother's side) used to carry. Nana had used it to hold baby pictures of Leia. Leia removed her old baby pictures and replaced them with copies of the ultrasound pictures that we had of our baby. For the first page of the album she created a coversheet that said: "Congratulations! Tim and Leia are excited to announce that your First Grandchild is due on July 7th 2009". Leia wrapped the photo album in tissue paper and placed it in a Christmas gift bag. The plan for giving it to them was that Leia would tell them she had a special present for them to open together and that we wanted to take a before and after picture. Once I had the video rolling on the camera (our digital camera will take short video clips which was awesome for this purpose), Leia would count down "1..2..3.. GRANDPARENTS!" and then get them to open the gift bag. Follow the link below to see the video of the reveal.

Tip: Watch Leia's father at the beginning of the video. His facial expression when Leia says "GRANDPARENTS!" is priceless. Leia's mother is a bit more skeptical and cautious at first, but once she reads the first page of the photo album it all breaks loose.

Video: Telling Leia's parents

Leia's parent's reactions made all of the waiting worth it. The big reveal was everything we hoped it would be and more, and I'm really glad that we were able to get the whole thing on video. I think it is really funny and I never get tired of watching it, especially the part where I get "mugged" by Leia's mom. The best part was realizing that this was just the beginning of getting to tell people that we were having a baby. Over the next few hours we got to tell Leia's three brothers and call her aunts, uncles and cousins. And of course Leia's parents went down to the lodge and told everyone there. Many of the people at the lodge have known Leia since she was a kid. It was a real rush and a great start to our Christmas vacation.

We stayed with Leia's parents until Tuesday December 23rd, and then we got in the car for a 7 hour trip to Augusta to see my family. Now it was my turn to set up my family for the big surprise. In my next post I'll have some more video links and the story of how that all went down. Then we should be all caught up with the past and I can start blogging about the present.

Latest Visit

Tim and I went to see the doctor yesterday. It was a short visit but still brought us a lot of joy. We got to listen to the baby's heart beat at a steady 155 beats per minute. We only got to listen to it in spurts as the baby was moving around a lot which also thrilled us. The doctor said that the next visit will be more in depth. They will draw blood for the quad screen to test for some genetic defects like Down's syndrome. We will also have a thorough ultrasound where we will get to find out the baby's gender. We are hoping that we will be able to get a recording of this one.


Everyone has been asking about how I'm doing. I'm doing pretty well. I feel like I've gotten off easy since I haven't had any morning sickness. I have had days where I didn't feel well but otherwise, I've been doing really well. According to my last visit, I have gained a total of 2.5 pounds even though myy home scale says 5. According to my book, I should start gaining on average a pound a week.


Last week was a bit difficult. I was very excited about entering the second trimester since my energy levels are supposed to increase. Well, I woke up on Monday morning with my TMJ aggravated. Apparently, my body is releasing a hormone that effects my joints. I had trouble eating all week. Things are better now but I imagine this will be a recurring problem. By Saturday, I was feeling really good. Tim and I had such a wonderful day. My energy was finally up so we went out shopping and checked out our local Babies R Us. I felt great! We had a wonderful dinner. Tim grilled steaks and I cooked potatoes and green beans. I hadn't felt that way in a while so I was rather disappointed when I got up on Sunday with a stomach bug.


Oh well! I'm feeling great now. We had a wonderful visit yesterday with the doctor. I bought some new maternity pants on Friday and I'm now a very comfortable pregnant lady. My sweet husband has been working very hard to complete our den projects. Our baby looks healthy. Oh, and I just bought a crib from a co-worker. It will convert into a toddler bed and then into a full-sized bed frame. It is our first purchase for our baby. Life is good!


Thank you to everyone for your well wishes.