Let's Try This Again...

So word has been getting out gradually that we have a new little kumquat on the way! (I'm told that's the size of our little babe now). Though we've been very apprehensive and cautiously optimistic up until now, we're breathing easier every day, and with every ultrasound we have. We are 10 weeks pregnant, and things are looking great, all thanks be to God! We found out we were pregnant at only 3 1/2 weeks, which was unusual for us, and it felt very surreal, and I don't think either of us wanted to believe it quite yet and get our hopes up again. Thankfully we had our beach trip to try to occupy our minds a little, though my body let me know for a couple of days there that I was definitely pregnant - it was the start of fatigue, a 6 day severe headache and a couple of days of bad nausea. After returning home, we had a 7-week sonogram (I had several minutes of sheer panic and dread while waiting to have it done), and we were so thrilled to see the little heartbeat! We had told Ellison she was maybe going to be a big sister again just before the sonogram, because she had to go with us. When we told her, she was like, "Yeah, okay, whatever..." basically. We prompted her by telling her we had to wait and see if this baby was going to grow. Well, as soon as we saw the little heartbeat and were handed the photos, Ellison insisted she hold them, and started literally jumping up and down repeating, "We're going to have a baby!", grinning ear to ear. She had to hold the pictures the whole way home while she called Grandma to tell her our baby was growing.

Though I remembered from my OB in Colorado that once you see a heartbeat, the chances of miscarriage go way down, we (or at least I) worried a little as the 9-week sonogram approached. But once again the 3 of us saw the little heartbeat and even got to hear it! It was very exciting.

Yesterday was my first official big OB appointment, and I was on cloud 9 when we took a peak at baby, who started moving around all over the place! It totally made my day! I wish Jonathan and Ellison could've seen it. It's feeling more real now.

In general, I'm feeling pretty good. Except for those couple of days at the beach, and the 6-day headache, and a couple of days of vertigo (that's not fun!), I've only had little bouts of nausea - nothing to write home about. My appetite is funky, but I feel pretty good as long as I keep a little something in my stomach at all times. The heartburn has been full-on every day come dinner time, and doesn't go away until I go to sleep at night. Tums are my friend! Of course I have the other normal pregnancy symptoms, but I'm so thankful I'm not hanging over the porcelain in the bathroom!

Since it would've been difficult to hide from them (why would I not be drinking Uncle Dick's homemade wine that always accompanies our family gatherings?), as they were coming to visit for 2 1/2 weeks, Grandma and Grandpapa found out when they got here. Ellison put on her "Big Sister" shirt before bedtime, and Grandma noticed it right away. We told a few members of our immediate family after we had the first ultrasound and 1 or 2 friends right away. For the most part, we've just been letting people find out however. Not keeping it a secret, but we just feel weird just blurting it out and announcing it. So we're letting word-of-mouth do most of the announcing for us.

Ellison is SO interested in anything related to babies right now. She LOVES seeing pictures of how big it is right now and what it looks like on the computer, and loves hearing stories of our pregnancy with her. She talks often about how much of a helper she is going to be, telling us she will change the diapers, and rock it if it cries, and change its clothes. It has definitely helped the guilt feelings we already have about how much her world is going to change, though we know it'll be for the better. We're trying to work on her becoming more independent with small tasks, in anticipation of possible bedrest again toward the end of the pregnancy. We pray that won't be the case, but will do everything we can to prepare as best we can.

We are getting asked a lot if we will find out the sex of the baby, and the answer is yes... in another 7 months or so... :-) Our due date as it stands right now is January 23. Yes, we are getting lots of grief about it. I have to admit that I am more inclined to find out this time than I was with Ellison, but feel pretty comfortable sticking to our guns on this. When I asked Jonathan if he wanted to know, he said "Nah, let's just wait again." It would be nice to know if I could have Ellison's baby clothes washed and set ahead of time, and it would be nice to accent the neutral nursery with a particular color, but we can do that after it's born. We so loved the moment, after laboring to birth her, that Jonathan got to announce, "It's a girl!!!". The good thing is, we have lots of gender-neutral newborn things.

So, that's it in a not-s0-small nutshell. :-) Our big family news that we are so unbelievably excited for...