Time To Go Private?

I'm strongly considering taking this blog private. I think that with personal info out there about Chris and me, as well as information about our baby girl, it might be best to protect our privacy and be somewhat aware of who is reading the information I provide here.

In order to go private I need to enter in an email address and send an invitation for you to be able to login and read this blog. So, if you would kindly leave an email address in the comments section I PROMISE I will not publish it for all of the blog world to see. It's just a formality and I think that when you sign in once, you don't need to do it again. So use the email you use for junk mail or something, just check it because you'll get an invite you need to click on! Even if you just check in occassionally or you found your way here through someone else's blog, please leave your email so that you can continue visiting. I'm trying to cut down on visitors from countries I cannot pronounce! Not YOU!!

I hope this doesn't hurt any feelings. With so many friends and family spread from state to state keeping a blog is the easiest way to update everyone, especially when Miss Em arrives and we have to share 1,569,775,348 videos and pictures of the cute things she does as she grows. I love my blog readers and love sharing our happenings with you, especially because life is just getting better and better with the best yet to come!

Hey baby, I think I wanna marry you

Yay!! We have finally set our wedding date for February 10!!

Our ceremony will be at the civil courthouse downtown (it's prettier) and the dinner reception is at Cafe Benedicte, (www.cafebenedicte.com), which Chris and I discovered recently and LOVE. We decided to limit the guest list to family only in order to keep things from getting out of control and will individually celebrate with our friends over the next few months. (I think our couples baby shower will also be an extended celebration of our wedding.) We have reserved the wine room; it's a decent sized room with wine bottles on all of the shelves with french doors closing off the room from the rest of the restaurant. We are leaving the menu open instead of creating our own so that everyone can choose what they like. We will have a photographer to capture the memories of the day so I will post those once we get them back. Chris and I have known for a very long time that when we got married we would do something small and very simple, something that required very little stress. This is exactly what we wanted!!! (Well, once we realized that the other option of flying off to Vegas wasn't the best when you're 6 months pregnant!)

After dinner we will head off to the hill country, to the Hyatt Regency Hill Country Resort & Spa, for a weekend of pampering. We will indulge in spa treatments on Saturday (I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am about my prenatal massage and pedicure--seriously, where did my feet go??) and then have dinner on the riverwalk in San Antonio. We will do the late check-out option and possibly head in to Austin or back to San Antonio on Sunday but we're pretty flexible and are looking forward to just being together as husband and wife. Maybe, if the weather is nice, we'll explore the hill country a little bit before heading back to Katy.

We have a doctor's appointment on the 1st to see little Emily again. She's growing quite a bit and I get the pleasure of feeling her move and kick on a daily basis now. I swear on some days it's like she's doing barrel rolls in my tummy! She loves car rides and kicks quite a bit while we're driving down the road...each time it cracks me up. Her latest trick is to bounce on my bladder, which is the weirdest feeling--"I need to pee! Oh no, nevermind. Ooops, need to pee! Hmmm...maybe not..." Chris got to feel her kick for the first time the other night. --Insert HUGE smile here!-- I've always try to give him the best description possible of how it feels because I know he's a little jealous that I get to feel her, so when he finally got the opportunity...well, it was just awesome! He is SO excited about his daughter and he is going to be THE MOST incredible father!

Mommy was right!

On December 29th we had our anatomy scan.  Upon entering the room I told the ultrasound tech that we definitely want to know the sex of our baby.  He squirted the goo on my ever growing belly and said "girl".  No "congratulations it's a girl!" like we kind of expected, just "girl".  Chris asked "how can you tell?" and our tech, Mo (no lie), said "she has girl parts."  Ahhhh, so THAT'S how you could tell!  So the announcement didn't have a lot of fanfare, but it was incredible none-the-less.  I have been saying since our first scan at 13 weeks that I thought Baby was a girl, so mamma was right! Introducing Emily Catherine, the most spoiled little girl in the world! 

Other memorable moments from our ultrasound include me asking if she had all 10 fingers and toes and the ever elusive Mo responding, "that's the least of your worries".  Ummm...ok?  Emily has both kidneys and we were able to see her brain (when I asked if it was big so she would be smart Mo said "that doesn't matter; it's whether she uses it or not!") and--according to Mo, who we learned has a dry sense of humor and likes to tease his patients, and the doctor--is perfect, just petite like her mommy but totally proportional so we have nothing to worry about.  And no, she does not have two noses as it appears in her picture above.  So I guess we won't be getting in Ripley's Believe It or Not.  She is weighing in at 10 oz and is right on track. 

Today we had our regular checkup with the doctor and went over our ultrasound (and got more reassurance that Emily is perfect).  My belly measurements are right on track and my doctor is pleased.  Emily wasn't as squirmy today as she was at her anatomy scan or at previous appointments because mommy hadn't loaded up on sugar to make her more active but she did show us that she has found her toes and was playing with them and gave us a mini-fistbump. Our child fits right in with her daddy and me!

Fistbump!!

I also learned that I have NOT gained 12 lbs, I have only gained 6 and have to gain a pound a week from here on out.  I thought that would be easy until I realized that I have only gained 2lbs since Dec. 5th, and to be honest I haven't been watching what I eat so I guess I will have to think about eating more. I suppose that's not an awful problem to have...We also realized that my total meat aversion is a bit of an issue.  I'm supposed to have 75 grams of protien A DAY.  Yeah, I haven't been getting anything near that because meat is not my friend so I think we will be adding protien powder to my smoothies and I'll be eating a lot of eggs...yuck.  I have made an honest try at meat; I still crave it and even tried a bite of Chris's chicken fried steak tonight.  I couldn't even swallow it.  If it's not one thing it's another, but I am so thankful for our darling healthy girl and that makes everything else secondary.

Here are the current stats:

I'm 21 Weeks!

Pregnancy Highlights:
How Far Along: 21 Weeks, 4 days
Size of Baby: Size of carrot (Approx 10 1/2 inches long--a little less because she's on the smaller side of normal-- and 10 oz)
Total Weight Gain: 6 lbs
Maternity Clothes: Yes...SO comfy!

Gender: GIRL!!!  Emily Catherine

Movement: Occassionally.  Still not consistent but she's little so I don't expect it full time for a couple more weeks. 
Sleep: sleeping well! 
What I Miss: meat

Cravings: sweets, fruit, fruit smoothies, potatoes, limeade, black beans
Symptoms: none this week except for a growing belly
Best Moment this Week: watching our daughter play with her toes during the ultrasound today!

Gooo-in' to the courthouse, and we're, gonna get MA-A-A-RIED!!!

We're engaged!!!!  Yeah yeah yeah, I know, you're thinking "well, duh, you've got a baby on the way", but it's still super exciting to have the question officially asked and answered and the ring on your finger (at least to me)!  This was also a huge deal to Chris, who, when we found out about Baby, felt like he was going to be gypped on getting to do the whole proposal surprise and I was going to be gypped on having a real engagement.  Soooo... we did things in our own time knowing that this was always the plan and not worrying about anything. 

Our engagement period will be short--we just cannot wait to be husband and wife--and if it wasn't for work schedules and family's who want to be present we would be saying our vows tomorrow, seriously.  Unfortunately, court cases don't go away just for us so we are planning on getting married at the end of January when Chris's schedule opens up a bit and our families can make travel plans to be with us as we start the next chapter in our fairytale.

Because it's special to us, I don't really want to share details about the proposal except to say that it happened on Christmas Eve, by Christmas tree light, just slightly before midnight, and it was wonderful.  I am honestly the luckiest girl in the world, living a perfectly wonderful life, all because this incredible man loves me more than anyone could ever imagine.  There are not enough words to ever completely define our relationship, but I believe with all of my heart that it is what everyone is looking for and only a few are lucky enough to find. 

1.5 CTW of bling on my finger.  The center stone is a cushion cut square diamond, & the surrounding diamonds are round. LOVE.

May Your Days Be Merry and Bright...

Merry Christmas from US to YOU!!!







Baby furniture and other stuff

The Baby's furniture has been purchased, delivered, and set up! Chris and I, along with my parents, went window shopping for cribs a few weeks ago with no intention of buying anything at the time. On our last walk-through of Baby's 1st Furniture we came across a set--crib, changer, and 5 drawer dresser--on sale for $999, regularly $1500. It also happened to be the very last one! Knock off another $100 for that and we got an incredible deal on furniture that will last our child through college. The pieces are solid cherry with dovetailed drawers and it looks gorgeous in the nursery! The crib is feminine enough for a girl, but masculine enough for a little boy.

Speaking of boy or girl, at our 16 week appointment on Dec. 5th we set our appointment for the anatomy scan, where we will make sure baby is developing as it should and also find out the sex (assumming baby is cooperative)!  On December 29th we will find out if we are having an EC (or EA) or an AT! 

We also ordered our fetal doppler so we can listen to Baby's heartbeat whenever we would like!  Chris and I have really enjoyed this, and I have been able to locate Baby on the first try 99% of the time.  The heartbeat is consistently in the 140-160's, and is very strong.  Baby likes to move toward the doppler to check out what is going on to cause those sound waves it feels (I guess).  We like to call it "The Little Inquisitor".

As for me...I am finally over the cold that hung around for 2 1/2 weeks.  It was awful!  On top of that, during bloodwork last week my doctor found out that I have developed anemia, which totally explains why I have felt so sluggish and awful for a while now.  I am taking an iron supplement for the anemia and a B6 vitamin for energy and immune support.  I have also developed a nasty meat aversion...it's so bad that I actually can't even TALK about meat anymore...

And I figure it's time to start this:

I'm 17 Weeks!

Pregnancy Highlights:
How Far Along: 17 Weeks, 3 days
Size of Baby: Size of an onion (Approx 5.1 inches and 5.9 oz)
Total Weight Gain: 12 lbs (totally within the normal range)
Maternity Clothes: Yes...the pants are just more comfortable.  I don't need maternity shirts for work, but the bump definitely shows. 

Gender: not a clue and we don't have a preference

Movement: occassionally.  After dinner at Maggiano's the other night Baby was quite active.
Sleep: sleeping well right now! 
What I Miss: not having headaches, my flat tummy
Cravings: sweets, fruit smoothies, potatoes
Symptoms: round ligament pain, sore breasts (hurts to walk), tired, headaches
Best Moment this Week: listening to Baby's heartbeat and knowing it's growing nice and strong

12 week Baby Pics (3 weeks later)

On November 7th we had our NT Scan to check on Baby and make sure that s/he is progressing on track. Baby's due date was officially set for May 19th and the doctor seemed pleased with its progress. Everything measured great and Baby is developing perfectly. S/he was VERY active and was kicking off of my uturine wall and floating backwards, waving as s/he went. Chris and I joke that we have a swimmer on our hands and s/he's practicing the backstroke. We won't find out the gender of Baby for a few weeks but we have already picked out names that will feel would be excellent for a future Supreme Court Judge. While neither one of us would prefer one over the other, right now my mom-sense is telling me it's a girl. (If I am wrong, I apologize in advance, dear son.)

Here are a couple of pictures of Baby. I think s/he looks like a stuffed Winnie the Pooh doll with the fluffy tummy and little stumpy legs. S/he also has an adorable button nose :). We are absolutely in love with our little gift and cannot wait to meet her/him in May!

Little legs kicked up ready to push off with a wave hello!