15 Weeks

Pregnancy Highlights

How far along: I am 15 weeks today

Size of baby: Baby Stanford is the size of a Navel Orange (4-4 1/2 inches long.)

Total weight gain/loss: I have finally gained a pound back!

Maternity Clothes: Not as often as I would like, but as soon as summer hits I will live in maternity jeans! My work pants are pretty close to being to tight to wear.

Gender: We find out in 3 more weeks, but everything and everyone has said it's a boy!

Movement: None so far, but it shouldn't be too much longer!

What I miss: I miss going a whole day without any back pain. I use to only get back pain after a long day of marching band rehearsal, but now I have back pain for no reason at all.

Cravings: Nothing specific this week, but having a normal appetite is nice.

Symptoms: Needing a bathroom break every 15 minutes... Although I can't feel our little one moving, I think s/he is dancing on my bladder.

Best moment this week: Having enough energy to clean my house from top to bottom, oh and to cook dinner!

1 & 1/2 more days until summer!!!

14 Weeks

As soon as we found out we were pregnant I started planning how we should document my pregnancy experience. After seeing how Whitney Rodgers blogged weekly throughout her pregnancy I decided I would do the same!

I know I'm starting a little late, (I had planned to start at 10 weeks) but this past few weeks of school have been CRAZY!!!

Pregnancy Highlights
(Weekly Pregnancy Pictures are soon to come too!)

How far along: I am 14 weeks today

Size of baby: Baby Stanford is the size of a Peach (3- 3 1/2 inches long.)

Total weight gain/loss: I have lost a total of 9 pounds so far.

Maternity Clothes: Occasionally, especially when there’s a big pile of dirty laundry. But, since losing 25 pounds (from January till now) most of my clothes fit like maternity clothes.

Gender: We find out in 4 Weeks!!

Movement: None so far, but we are looking forward to feeling our little wiggler.

What I miss: I miss having energy! I feel exhausted all of the time which then leads to me doing NOTHING when I finally make it home. My house and car are a mess, I haven’t cooked in at least a month, and I have dirty laundry out the Wazoo! I’m so ready to feel like myself again!

Cravings: Pickle Juice!

Symptoms: Fatigue!!! These past few weeks of school have been crazy, so I hope once the

 stress has calmed down I will be less tired.

Best moment this week: Receiving a precious Mother’s Day Mother-to-be card from my sweet Husband and Mother-in-law.

This past  Friday we had our 3rd doctor's appointment. It was a typical appointment... weigh in, pee in a cup, ask questions... but we also were able to hear our sweet baby's heartbeat again! It's so wonderful to know God has blessed us with a healthy little miracle! We also found out we will have the "BIG Sonogram" done when we go back on June 11. At this appointment the doctor will give our little one a good look over, and we will hopefully find out the gender of our precious little baby! 

The Second Appointment - 8 Weeks

After our first appointment somehow Jordan and I were a bit of a mess. We were excited, and unsure, and nervous of course, but mostly it all felt like it was too good to be true. Once we began to tell others of our news things became more real, but we new until we saw the sonogram and heard the heart beat we would be anxious.

Well the day finally came, April 4th. We went into the doctors office anxious about what to expect. 

Would there be more than one baby.... Would it have a heart beat...

Is everything healthy???

The moment we saw the sonogram our hearts leapt with joy.

There it was, our little peanut. 

Then we heard that sweet little heart beat. The one thing that got us so much closer to being out of risk of having a miscarriage.

Of course these are the only two things we were hoping for, so we were absolutely delighted!

Then the sonogram technician said do you see it wiggling?  
  

Our little peanut was moving! It was waving its little head and hands around. We could even SEE the heart beating! I felt like my heart was going to explode. Here I was terrified of a miscarriage while God is blessing us with such a BEAUTIFUL MIRACLE!

The rest of the appointment went great! The doctor said everything is wonderful, and the baby was even measuring  3 days bigger than expected. Now all we do is wait for the next appointment, and pray. 

At our next appointment I will be 13 almost 14 weeks. We will be beginning the 2nd Trimester, and saying goodbye to the high risk of a miscarriage. I am anxious to reach this point.  Please keep us in your prayers as we continue on this wonderful journey!

Telling the Family

Because we live so far from our parents we wanted to wait until we could tell them in person. This worked out perfectly too, because we just happen to find out the week before my Spring Break.
Although it was extremely difficult to keep the secret I was finally off, and it was time to share the news!

First we would tell Jordan's Parents.
Leading up to telling Jordan's parents we decided we wanted a special way to tell them. We searched and searched for creative ideas, but came up with very little. We finally decided to try making a platter into a chalkboard (thank you Pinterest!), and we wrote the BIG NEWS on it.
On Sunday we headed to Jordan's hometown to spend a couple of days with his parents. We definitely wanted to tell them at the same time, so we thought lunch would be the perfect moment Right!?! Well, we actually made it to their house a little later than expected, so they had already eaten. This meant Jordan's Dad had already started with his handi-work in the yard.
No Problem! We would just eat lunch and act like nothing was going on... (SO DIFFICULT!) and wait until he finally came back in the house. When the moment was finally right we quickly got the platter and headed into the house with our Big Announcement to find Jordan's Dad had disappeared again!
Not being able to wait any longer, we then gave the platter to Jordan's Mom and celebrated the coming of our new bundle of joy!

 Once Jordan's Dad did come in he of course was shown the platter too. We all then talked about how exciting it was going to be to have a new Grandchild in the family!

Then it was time to tell my Mom and Sister.
The original plan was to have lunch on Monday with them, but unfortunately my Dad was suppose to have Heart Surgery on Monday. Instead we planned to meet on Friday, and again the waiting began!
Sunday afternoon after telling Jordan's Parents Jordan and I decided to make a trip to see my dad before the surgery, and lo and behold who was at the hospital?? My Mom!!! Right at that moment our Big News just spewed out of me! As we celebrated family member after family member cycled in and out of the hospital room to visit. This meant they also knew the news... I realized then if I was going to be the FIRST person to tell my Sister I would have to tell her over the phone, so I made that exciting phone call. We chatted for what seemed like forever talking about what to expect, how I had been feeling, and simply how excited we were!

It was so precious to enjoy these moments of telling our families we are expecting a little precious baby! I will never forget their reactions. We are so blessed to have such amazing Parents and families!

The First Appointment - 4 Weeks

On Monday morning I frantically called my OBGYN in Tupelo hoping to either get an appointment or a referral to a doctor in Oxford. It seemed like I wasn't going to have an appointment for 3 weeks, but since Jordan wouldn't believe we were pregnant without a doctor saying so I decided 3 weeks was WAY TOO LONG to wait!

I decided to call one last office, and they just so happend to have an appointment with a female doctor two days later (one of Jordan's day's off)!! How perfectly did that work out!?!

Now I had to figure out a way to take off from work without telling everyone where I was going.....
We both REALLY needed to get our eyes checked, so I thought what better cover up than a different doctors appointment. Another cycle of frantic phone calls later, and we were all set for  both appointments.

Our first OBGYN appointment was pretty basic...
Pee in a cup
Physical
Discuss my symptoms

We were hoping to get a sonogram, but apparently 4 weeks just isn't far enough along to see our little one.

That's right I said 4 weeks! This means my due date is officially NOVEMBER 12, 2012.

We left the doctors office finally believing this dream of ours had come true....

We are becoming parents.

Now we anxiously await our next appointment in 4 weeks where we will have our first sonogram done.
We can't wait to see our little one and to confirm everything thing is going as planned in there.

Until then we just dream.....

Hot off the Press!

We have a BIG announcement to make, and where better to make this announcement than on our very own BRAND NEW blog!!

When Jordan and I first married we both were very anxious to have a baby, but we understood we were not emotionally or financially ready for this step. This is when we made a Leap List of the things we must accomplish before a baby could come into the picture:

1. Leigh Ann must graduate with her Bachelors.

2. Leigh Ann and Jordan MUST have sustainable full time jobs.

3. We must own a house.

As you may know # 1 & 2 have successfully been fulfilled.

What you may not know is we are in the process of deciding upon a house we will (God Willing) buy this summer when our current lease is up!

In December we realized we were well on our way to completing our Leap List, so we began talking about when would be a good time to try getting pregnant....

- Should we wait to try in August, so the baby would be born during my Summer Vacation?

- Should we begin trying NOW, since it will most likely take several months to conceive?

In January we came to a decision. I would stop taking birth control, and we would PRAY to conceive when the time was right! It took my sister a few years to conceive, so it take at least several months right!?!

On Friday, March 2nd (a few days too early) while we were cooking dinner, I snuck away and quickly took a pregnancy test.... All I could think was "Of course it's going to be negative...."

After what seamed like a million years and lots of blinking it said...

Just one simple word.

I walked into the kitchen with a huge grin on my face and showed Jordan. He was in complete shock!

We both agreed that it was probably a false positive, so I would take another one the next morning.

It was positive too, plus 2 other test I took....

Jordan still wasn't 100% convinced, so I began the search for an OBGYN who could get us in ASAP!