17 Weeks

Not a whole lot happened at our 17 week appointment, but I still want to remember everything, so here goes. The entire process was only about 20 minutes, and about 15 of those were in the waiting room. We paid our first "birth payment" (yikes) and went back to the room. The nurse immediately whipped out that devil tool known as the doppler... but this time she found the heart beat right away! yay! The heart rate was 159 bpm, and everything else was great. The doctor came in for just a minute and said everything is progressing beautifully as far as blood pressure, weight (5 lbs), heart rate, etc. and that was pretty much it. I wish every appointment was this easy and non-invasive! ha!

And just for fun, here I am at 17 weeks...

Still not a whole lot going on other than a seriously chipped manicure and a baggy shirt that makes me look more pregnant than usual.. but that's okay!

Minor Freak Out

On April 23 (13 weeks), we had our second doctor's visit. It was just a run of the mill check-up to make sure everything was still going as planned. After having the financial meeting with the billing department, we got called into the office. Almost immediately, the nurse came in to check the baby's heartbeat. She pulls out the "doppler" device that I had heard so many horrible things about. I wasn't worried though, since we had already heard a strong heartbeat at 9 weeks. She begins moving this tiny (but LOUD) thing around on my stomach searching for the heartbeat. She does this for about a minute before she starts saying things like "sometimes it's really hard to find the heartbeat with these when they are so small" and "sometimes it's hard to distinguish the baby's heartbeat from the mother's" and so on. So I started to panic. I looked over at Ryan and his head was down and he wouldn't look at me. More panic. She decided that we should do an ultrasound to make sure everything is okay. We were sent to a small room to wait for the ultrasound where I cried and lived a million lives in approximately 5 minutes. As soon as we got into the room and the ultrasound (external - hallelujah!) got started, we immediately saw our baby and heard a strong heartbeat at 149 bpm. I can still hear my husband's loud and relief-filled exhale when we heard that sweet sound! The momentary stress was totally worth it since we got new pictures of our little one...

Especially since it actually looks like a baby now! I am terrible at deciphering ultrasounds, so I'm glad that we got one that is pretty straightforward! From then on, nothing really mattered about the appointment. We did all the normal stuff and left with happy hearts.

The moral of the story is: don't trust the doppler. I have heard so many horror stories of women who were told they had miscarried because there was no heartbeat on the doppler, only to find out weeks later that everything was completely normal.

Only 4 more weeks until we can start shopping for pink or blue!

First Gifts

The hardest part about the second trimester that no one ever mentions is the inability to shop. Once I got through the first trimester, I got a huge sense of relief that everything should be okay and that there is actually a real human baby in there. Well, babies need stuff and I want to start buying all that stuff. The only problem is, I don't know if I need to buy pink stuff or blue stuff! There are very few "gender neutral" things that I don't completely hate. A kid can only have so many green and yellow duck outfits. I think I literally feel pain when I get the Zulily email every morning and am unable to buy any of the adorable and discounted outfits for girls and boys. Along the way, we have received and have purchased a few things for our mystery baby...

The first gift we received was this ultrasound frame from my Mom. I couldn't find one that I liked anywhere but luckily my Mom knew I would want one and found this one that I love...

Then one night Ryan and I decided we wanted to buy a little something (mostly because I had this awesome 50% off Fisher Price coupon from Target! ha!) and we ended up with this iPod/iPhone holder thing for little ones to play games on. Might as well teach him or her at a young age that Apple is taking over the world...

One day I did give in to a Zulily sale and I bought some adorable little pajama sets. I have a weird thing for baby and kid pajamas. I just think they look so cute and comfy in them. I ended up with these by Leveret:

And of course, big bro Carter wanted to get in on the photo action:

I also bought a couple little things from Children's Place (also because they were on super sale and because so many of my friends are obsessed with the "Stretchies" sleepers)

Clearly, someone is not camera shy!

And lastly, when we were in Nashville last weekend for the Rock & Roll Marathon, Ryan's mom bought us a big bag of fun stuff from San Diego for the little one:

So that is what we have accumulated so far! We are very lucky to have several friends and family who are already planning showers for us. I cannot wait to find out what we are having so that we can register because I am already completely obsessed with Buy Buy Baby. I mean - it actually smells like babies in there. I don't know how they do it. Hurry up June 11th!!