I love freebies!

Thank you to my dear friend Angela's post I found out about this awesome $32.00 freebie and now I'm passing it on to all of you! Click HERE to order your nursing cover. Pick out the cover you want and enter the promotion "backorder" and only pay $8.95 for shipping. :o)

Happy Friday!

Drum roll please....

We're having a baby girl! We are so happy we don't have to call our baby IT anymore and we now get to call our baby HER/SHE! One of these days she'll have a name too! We didn't get see very clear girl parts but we saw between the legs and a flat legged profile and there are no boy parts to be found. But because our Doc didn't see super clear girl parts he couldn't guarantee 100% that it is a girl but he said I would buy girl stuff and maybe one boy thing just in case and well, that's good enough for me!

She is growing right on target, and as you can see in the photo below, she has a very cute profile. Looks like she has her Mama's chubby cheeks too. :o) Our little girl was moving her little hands around, and wiggling all over the place. It was so fun to see her. My due date hasn't changed but she did measure a couple days larger. Thank you all for participating in the gender poll and congrats to the 25 of you who guessed right! It was so fun to check everyday to see what the count was up to. Not only were the 25 of you who guessed girl right but so were Nick and I! We were both pretty proud of ourselves!

A lot of you have been asking if we have picked a name yet and well, we have like five. One of these day's we will narrow it down to maybe two names, but I think I want to see her before we give her a definite name but who knows, maybe I'll change my mind. Here she is, our sweet baby girl!

Half Way There!

20 weeks today! I can't believe we're half way there already! I hope that this pregnancy continues to fly by this fast. Thursday is our big ultrasound. We are hoping the baby doesn't decide to be modest, we REALLY want to know what we're having. If you haven't voted in the poll on our side bar please do so! So far girl is winning but we'll have to wait until Thursday to see which gender wins.

I have been feeling pretty dang good lately. I am still tired a lot of the the time but that's to be expected. Growing a baby is hard work, dang it! The baby moves around a lot more now and I can tell the difference between kicks, rolls and nudges. It is so fun! I absolutely love being pregnant!

It's Labor day weekend and in Ellensburg that means the fair and rodeo come to town. Nick and I did our usual festivities this year. We went to the rodeo parade on Saturday, in the rain and all. Even though it seems to be the same parade every year we go anyway. Its a tradition! Nick isn't a huge fan of the whole rodeo but he likes the bull riding, so we like to go to the Xtreme Bull riding event where it is just bull riding all night. We had a lot of fun! I forgot to check the battery on my camera before we got there and went to take a picture and you guessed it, it was dead! So I apologize for not having any pictures.

I survived my first week at my new job and I am LOVING it!!! The Nurses, Dr's and aids that I get to work with have all been so welcoming and patient with me as I am learning. I have learned so many new things this week but I know that it will take me a while to get everything down. I got to witness an epidural being done, an episiotomy, and a delivery all for the first time. Not to mention I got to hang out with lots of cute babies this week. :o) I loved getting to view the delivery, it was such a miraculous thing to witness. It's a miracle in its self to even get pregnant but than to have that pregnancy progress to full term is a miracle! Especially since statistics show that 1 out of 3 pregnancies end in miscarriage. To see the things a woman's body can do get that baby out is also amazing! It was really a testament to me that the body is designed by Heavenly Father. I don't know how anyone can witness a birth and see that beautiful new baby and still not believe in God or at least a higher power. Life is a miraculous thing!

I would die for that

I was sorting through old emails today and found this video my mom sent me when Nick and I were right in the middle of our fertility struggles. Get your kleenex ready ladies! You may need them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqfGqOx2iDQ

News News News!

So first of all, I got a new job! I will now be working at the local hospital in the family birthing center also known as the OB department as a nurses aid and my official start date is tomorrow! I am so excited! I can't imagine a better place for me to work! Not only do I get to work with an amazing team of women and Dr's but I get to take care of cute new babies. How bad can that be right? My job will be cleaning up the babies when they are first born, drawing their blood, resuscitation if necessary, giving them their first bath and making sure the babies are in good health before the go back to their mama's. So all of you ladies having babies in Ellensburg soon, I just might get to be the one taking care of your sweet new baby!

In other news, I am now 18 weeks pregnant! Can you believe it? We are almost halfway there! Here is the latest picture of my lovely ever growing baby belly.

I had a Dr's appointment yesterday and everything still looks and sounds great! We got to hear the heartbeat again. Which is always reassuring, I still have my freak out moments every once in a while and that definitely calms my nerves. We are getting very anxious to know the sex of our baby. Only two more weeks! Sept 10th is the is the big day, that's if the little bambino decides for show off it's parts. We should have a good pep-talk with the kid before then, maybe that will work. :o)

So in honor of that momentous occasion that will hopefully be happening I added a poll to the side bar on the blog. Please vote on what you think our little one will be before September 10th. I would love to see what everyone's guesses are.

Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary. 4 years flies by fast when you're having fun!! Last year on our blog I told our story. So if you didn't get to read it last year, please do! I'm not sure what we are going to do tomorrow but something fun I'm sure. I'll let you know all about our date after tomorrow.

Don't forget to vote!

16 weeks and counting!

In the last 3 weeks since my last blog we have had many things happen! First of all, we've moved! Our new place feels smaller than we thought it would, and it we really miss our old apartment but I'm sure we will quickly get used to it and saving $400.00 a month on rent will make it worth it. The move went really well and fast! Mitch had several of his friends come and help us. The only bad thing about having several 20 something guys help us it that they just hauled and dropped so we had a quite a mess to sort through but we can't complain! They were a huge help!

Just a couple days after we moved we went to visit Nick's family for the weekend. We had so much fun! We wish we could have stayed longer though. While we were there we celebrated Nick's dad Larry's birthday. I beautified everyone of course and well, I must say the boys definitely needed it! I cut at least a two inches off of Brook and Taylor's hair, they both usually keep a nice, clean, SHORT haircut. They waited for me to visit before they got haircuts and it obviously had been waaay too long since I've seen them!

As of today I am 16 weeks or 4 months pregnant! I must say that things are going so much faster now that we have told everyone. I hope this pregnancy continues to go so quickly! Two weeks ago I had a regular OB appointment and everything is still going great! We heard the heartbeat for the first time which was amazing. Whenever we have a new milestone to reach I always get a little nervous that something bad will happen probably due to my prior pregnancy losses. Obviously I'm worried for nothing because things continue to go swimmingly, I just have to keep telling myself that.

At my doctors appointment, my Dr. gave me a 25 pound weight restriction. As of right now I am on leave from work because people weigh much more than 25 pounds. I'm still fighting the company I work for to put me on light duty but they aren't having it. I think its ridiculous that they won't honor a Dr's order but we'll see what they have to say later this week. As of right now I am looking for a new job because I'm afraid that things may not end in my favor and well we need as much money as we can get right now. If you hear of anything let me know!

Yesterday I felt the baby move for the first time. It was such a strange yet wonderful feeling! To know that my baby really is there brought me to tears. We were at my parents house at the time so we were able to share that special moment with them. They were both so excited! Now I can't wait until Nick can feel the baby move so he can feel more involved in things. I'm loving all the firsts of this pregnancy. Everything is just so special to me!

It is now that time again! More belly pictures! These were both taken today, one is a better picture of me but the other shows off the girth better! Hope you like them!

We are now counting down the days until September 10th, our BIG ultrasound is scheduled for that day. Hopefully our baby will cooperate and decide to show off its parts so we will know if we are having a baby boy or a baby girl! It will be so nice to be able to start shopping and narrow down names. We can't wait!

12 Week Ultrasound and More!

Last Tuesday we had our twelve week ultrasound. It was really fun! The baby is growing right on target and everything looks great. It was moving around all over the place. The baby kept opening its mouth and then swallowing, and we got to see all of its important parts like the umbilical cord, the spine and so on. It was so great to see the baby growing nicely and still having a good strong heartbeat at 166 beats per minute! It has long skinny legs which unfortunately you can't see in the picture, but the dark spot where legs should be, its legs go all the way to the end. My scanner decided not to work for me today so I just took a picture of the picture (I know super classy right?), its not great quality but I wanted to post it anyway! So here it is, our baby at 12 wks 2 days!

Many of you asked how I have been feeling and I have been feeling pretty good. I have my good days and bad days. From about 5 weeks until 10ish I was sick almost everyday but I never threw up I just felt like I was going to all day. I started to feel a little bit better but now that I'm out of my first trimester is evidently when I get to deal with the throw up. NOT FUN! Its only been 3 times so I can't complain too much because I know there are some of you Mama's out there (like mine!) that threw up everyday for 9 months and my heart goes out to you! Next Tuesday the 28th I have my next prenatal visit. I will blog about it but it may take me a while to get to it!

So next week we are moving again! Ugh! My friend Greg says that we are worse than a military couple. This is our 4th move in 4 years. Oh well! With the baby coming we decided that it would be best to not renew our lease at our beautiful yet very expensive apartment and find a more reasonably priced apartment. We will be moving into a 2 bedroom townhouse with 1 1/2 baths and just as much square footage. We will however be losing a bedroom and a shower but it will worth it to save just shy of $400.00/month on rent! This week will be a lot of packing a cleaning to get ready for the big move, thankfully I have great brothers that have been willing well slightly bribed to come help us pack. They have been a huge help and so far we have gotten a lot done!

Lastly I wanted to thank everyone for the overwhelming response we had to my last post. I was really hesitant to share our very personal story but as I thought about it I knew that in order to really know our excitement for this pregnancy you had to know what we have been through. It was great to hear of others stories and struggles that they went through to become parents as well. If I touched just one person going through the same thing than I feel like I did my job. Nick I want to thank you all for the prayers, love and support. We have been truly blessed with the BEST friends and family in the world and we love you all dearly so, thank you!