It has been a while since I’ve updated you on my pregnancy.  Things are going very well and I am thoroughly enjoying the second trimester.  I have my energy back and I no longer have any morning sickness.  Although I can’t say it is entirely without its aggravations.  I find my lower back is aching now, particularly at the end of a long day sitting at my desk at work.  Next week I hope to go in for a prenatal massage, so that should help a little.

We had an ultrasound done a few weeks ago.  We’re having a girl . It was so neat to see her moving all around on the ultrasound screen.  She didn’t much care for the intrusion of the ultrasound wand into her space (she doesn’t really like the heart monitor thing that the doctor uses to get her heartbeat at my prenatal visits either).  Every time the ultrasound technician tried to get measurements she would move, she hid her face several times when the tech was trying to measure her facial features.  It took quite a while for the technician to confirm it was a girl.  She suspected it was early on but since the baby had her legs closed tight together or would move whenever she tried to get a good shot down there, and the umbilical cord was right there she didn’t want to say anything until she knew for sure.  After much time spent on the table she finally saw what she needed to and confirmed it was a girl.  We are both very excited and so are our families.

One of my favorite things about this trimester (besides getting to see her on the ultrasound monitor) is feeling the baby move.  She is kicking up a storm in there.  I am amazed how active she is already (and has been for quite sometime now).  My husband has been able to feel her move too, which he thinks is so cool.  Sometimes if you push on my belly she will kick back.  Having the ultrasound and feeling her move all around (not to mention my growing belly) has really made things seem so much more real than they did earlier in the pregnancy.

We have started picking out baby gear like bedding, nursery furniture, strollers and what not.  I have a lot of fun looking at all that stuff, I don’t think my husband enjoys it quite as much.  We are also working on picking out a name for a our little girl.  I can’t wait to see what the next few weeks and months bring.

The past week or so has been a really neat and interesting time in my pregnancy.  Last week I felt the baby move for the first time.  At first I didn’t know what it was the first few times I felt it, I suspected it was the baby but didn’t know for sure.  I talked to my doctor about what I was feeling at my 4 week follow up visit and he confirmed my suspicions.  Since then I feel the baby move several times a day.  It is such a cool feeling.  For those of you who haven’t felt a baby move early in pregnancy and are wondering what it feels like I would equate it to bubbles or popcorn popping.

I am a couple of weeks into my second trimester now.  Luckily all of my annoying early pregnancy symptoms including morning (or rather all day) sickness and exhaustion are gone.  I still have a few aversions, including mexican food and the smell of garlic, but I hear aversions typically stick around for the whole pregnancy.  I have my energy back, or at least most of it, which is very nice.

Over the past couple of weeks I have began to show a little bit.  This weekend I broke down and bought some maternity pants.  I just couldn’t stand squishing myself into my regular clothes anymore.  Monday at work I felt so much better wearing a pair of pants that had room for my growing belly.  I had originally thought about getting a few things that were a size or two bigger than my normal clothes, but then a friend of mine suggested that I try maternity clothes that are designed to grow with you from early pregnancy and on.  Boy am I glad I took her advice.

Later this month I will have my next ultrasound and should be able to find if our baby is a boy or a girl, I can’t wait.

I have almost reached the end of my first trimester, another week to go and I am there. At times it feels like time is going by very quickly and at others it feels like my due date is very far away.

This past week I had my regular 4 week check up. It was a very quick appointment as things are going very smoothly with my pregnancy so far (knock on wood), and there wasn’t a whole lot to talk about at this point in the pregnancy. The highlight was of course getting to hear the baby’s heartbeat for the first time. It is amazing how fast their tiny little heart’s beat. My doctor told on average a baby’s heart will beat 120 to 160 beats per minute.

At this stage in my pregnancy I still find the whole idea is still a little abstract. I mean it is hard to really grasp the concept of being pregnant when there are very few physical changes in my body, I certainly can’t feel the baby moving yet, and a stranger passing my on the street would have no idea I was pregnant. Listening to the baby’s heartbeat this week was one of those times when I really began to grasp the idea that there is another person growing inside of me. I can’t wait to see our baby again on the ultrasound monitor!

The last couple of weeks since I posted the last update on my pregnancy I have started to see a reduction in how often I experience morning sickness, and slowly I am getting a little bit of my energy back. I am told that for most women the end of the first trimester is also the end of morning sickness and the extreme lack of energy I have been feeling over the past few months. Let’s hope my doctor and the books are right. I haven’t started showing yet, although I do notice that my jeans and a few of my dress pants are getting little tight.

I am very excited to see what changes I experience next and what the next few weeks have in store for me.

Well, I figured now was as good a time as any to make the big announcement and let you know that I am expecting my first baby .  Needless to say my husband and I are very excited, although I think our mothers maybe even more excited than we are (this will be the first grandchild on both sides)!!

I found out about a month ago, but wanted to make sure everything was ok before I made a big announcement to my readers.  I have had a bunch of blood work done and had an ultrasound.  All the hormone levels are well within the range they should be at this point in the pregnancy, and the ultrasound showed a healthy little embryo.

I was 7 weeks along when I had the ultrasound so the little kiddo was about a centimeter long and we could see its little heart beating away at 160 beats per minute.  It really was a fascinating experience.  I went to one my mum’s ultrasounds when she was pregnant with my youngest brother, and I remember thinking it was pretty neat.  This time I was just blown away.  It was amazing to see that little thing growing inside of me.  For the first time since I had found out I was pregnant it felt real and not like some abstract thing.

Throughout the last 9 weeks I have been experiencing all the early symptoms in full swing.  I have morning sickness, which for me is actually all day sickness, yuck.  Luckily I don’t have much vomiting, only a couple times so far.  But I am nauseous all the time, it feels a lot like being motion sick. One of the more difficult things to deal with is being very exhausted.  I can sleep for 9 or 10 hours at night and then a few hours after getting out of bed be in desperate need of a nap, I just can’t get enough sleep.  A couple of other things I am experiencing is breast swelling and tenderness, acne, and a stuffy nose.  The joys of the first trimester!!

I will try every couple of weeks or so to update you on the progress of my pregnancy, the symptoms I am experiencing, and all that fun stuff.  I would love your helpful hints on getting through the various stages, we can learn from each other.  All this research I have been doing for my website can now be put to good use in my own life.