Sorry about the lack of updates...

So, I have not posted any updates in a while and apparently we have some avid readers (thanks!!) so here's what's been happening...

The lack of updates does have an excuse. We 're in the middle of gutting out our entire kitchen and redoing the entire thing. This means we can basically use two rooms in our house right now and we've been having to eat a ton of carry out. Plus, in the midst of all of this, we had a scare and had to go to the hospital. In hindsight, not the best idea to do a bunch of remolding while I'm pregnant but it beat the alternative of doing it once she got here. (also, I'm no longer allowed to wield a chisel and hammer to rip up the kitchen floor - but it was fun while it lasted) :)

On Sat. Feb 28th, I was having a lot of pain in my abdomen that lasted the entire day. Sometimes it would get increasingly worse and the middle of my stomach would be rock hard. Mike and I, of course being novices, thought... maybe it's her head??? It wasn't. I was having contractions. On Sunday the pain went away and I felt a lot better - which prompted the floor removal - but then around 4:00 I started having some spotting. After a lot of crying, I called my doctor and he told me to go up to Beaumont to get checked out. This made Mike and I even more nervous (I think we were hoping for a "happens all the time, don't worry about it" response).
On the way to the hospital, she was moving and kicking like crazy so I felt a lot better knowing that she was still okay. The hospital was great - we walked right in, I got hooked up to a monitor for contractions within 5 minutes and examined about 5 minutes after that. Apparently the contractions from Saturday caused a small amount of bleeding so that's what the spotting was. Whew! The midwife we saw at the hospital was right, if it's not one thing in pregnancy it's another!

I don't really have a lot of restrictions except for taking it easy, which I thought I had been doing, and not being so stressed out. This means my days of staying at the office until 6:30/7:00 are over for now. I actually have felt much better this week now that I've been making my self leave by 5:30.

The plus side of this is that Mike now knows the way to the hospital and we both know how to get to the labor and delivery area. Plus, we got to see her face on the ultrasound! No profile this time, she was looking right at us.

It's a girl!

So a few of you were right - most notably Mike...

We had our 18 week appointment today and we found out that our little baby is a baby girl! We're really excited - now there will be a little mini-me :) I think that thought makes Mike a little nervous but really happy too.
Everything looks really good with her. We need to go back in two weeks for another ultrasound so they can get some additional pics of her heart. I guess they need to take pics of the heart from a lot of different angles and she wasn't cooperating for one of them. So... more ultrasound pictures! I would get them everyday if I could. I love seeing her move around and 'wave' to us, which she was doing again this time.
Isn't she cute?














By the way - We are no longer allowed to hang out with the Matzkin-Bridgers, the Ousleys or any of our other friends that have baby boys. This little girl has a very protective father and you can never be to careful. :)

15 Week Appointment

We had our 15 week appointment today. I was really hoping for an ultrasound and (possibly) finding out the baby's sex. Unfortunately, neither of those things happened.

We met with the doctor and listened to the heartbeat which is always amazing. Then we went over a few questions we had and that was it. We would have had the blood work done to test for down syndrome today too but Mike and I opted not to have it done.
Now we go back in 3 weeks to have our 18 week ultrasound. That's when they'll measure the baby to make sure everything is on track and be able to tell us their sex! (as long as our baby cooperates)

More news to come...

Telling everyone!

The week of Christmas was really fun for Mike and I. Not only were we able to see most of our family (which is always fun), we were also able to tell all of them our baby news in person! We had to do a lot of traveling to make this possible, during which I discovered a new level of car sickness, but it was worth it.

Who we told - - - On Christmas day we went to my parents house and we were finally able to tell my niece and nephew. They were very excited and kind of understood why Aunt Christie has had an 'upset stomach" that they couldn't jump on for the past 3 months. The next day the Beem family and I (Mike had a migraine and had to stay home) ventured up to my Aunt Bobbie and Uncle Pat's place. We were able to see my cousin Jamie, her husband James and their little girl Ella who's almost one and the cutest thing ever! As soon as my Uncle Pat saw me he asked "so, do you have a bun in the oven yet or what?" to which I replied that I did! They were really happy and my uncle claims that his lucky statement was really because he can tell these kind of things...
Then it was back in the car and off to Ohio. We went to Mike's Grandma Peltz house 1st where we saw Grandma, the Pasternack's and Dave, Marilyn and Kevin Gagen. Then it was off to Aunt Marcia's to stay the night and visit with Marcia and Julie. In the morning we went to Grandma Chubb's house. We gave both of the grandma's a picture frame with one of the ultrasound pictures in it with their Christmas gifts. When Grandma Peltz opened it she said that she knew what it was but didn't want to say anything just in case she was wrong (Grandma Chubb thought it might have been a pic of an animal...).

Everyone was so happy for us and Mike and I are so glad we were able to see everyone and share our news in person. We hope that this blog will help keep everyone updated on our baby news for the next 27 weeks!

11 Weeks!

We had our second scheduled appointment on Tuesday (3rd overall). They took a bunch of blood to run the gambit of testing that needs to be done. I was told that "no news is good news" so if I don't hear from them, everything came back good. We also got to hear the baby's heartbeat which was really cool. We've heard it before during the ultrasound but it was really echo-y sounding. This time we got to hear it with a machine made just for that purpose so it sounded just like a heartbeat you would hear with a stethoscope. I also felt the tiniest flutter of the baby moving in the morning so when the doctor was trying to locate him/her I knew right were they were :)

The doctor told us that at this point the chance of having a miscarriage are significantly lower so we're SO happy!! We plan on telling our news to our extended family and friends over Christmas and then everyone at work after the 1st of the year.
I can't wait!!

A Few Scary Days

I started spotting on Nov. 20th and I was really scared after what happened last time. I called the doctor and he said that is was normal and not to worry but if it kept up to call him back.
It kept up for the entire next week, everyday. They asked me to come in on Dec. 1st for an ultrasound so they could make sure everything was okay. Waiting over the weekend was so hard. I didn't get out of bed except to use the bathroom and I did a ton of crying. Mike and I were prepared for the worst when we arrived at the doctor and I pretty much just felt numb. At first the ultrasound tech could not see anything and I could feel my heart sink (it was what I expected but it still hit me like a wave). But then - out of nowhere - was our little baby! We could see arms, legs, a nose but most importantly - a heart beat! Which now was beating a very strong 177 bpm.

Our baby even waved to us during the ultrasound as if to say "don't worry mom and dad, I'm okay". It was the greatest moment. The pics below were taken that day. Tom thinks that the 1st one looks just like Mike (but we can all see that giant brain is mine) :)

Well, we didn't like our original doctor so we decided to see what/who else was out there and I'm SO glad we did. My family doc recommended a place called Esprit Women's Health which is really great. It's in Royal Oak so it's really close to our house and everyone is so friendly. It's one doctor that worked in a large practice for a few years and didn't like how impersonal it was so he started his own practice about a year ago. The office is brand new and everything is state of the art. They were great to Mike and I on our 1st visit and even gave us a diaper bag filled with free samples of diapers, wipes, supplements and coupons. (I love free stuff so another great plus for them)!
Our next appointment is Dec. 16th