18 Weeks

How Far Along-18 Weeks 2 days

Weight Gain-1 pound! How is this possible? My belly is substantially larger and yet I haven't gained hardly any weight. Whatevs-it will all catch up to me soon.

Symptoms-I felt dizzy for the first time but thankfully it passed after one afternoon and I was back to normal. I feel completely normal other than the fact that I can feel a tiny human squirming around inside me ALL the time.

Sleep-It's been kinda blah lately. I don't think it's because I'm pregnant but more because I am living in a new place and still getting used to all the new sounds. Plus its a sauna in our bedroom at night. The AC doesn't quite reach our room so we have 2 fans going in there but it is still pretty miserable.

Favorite Moment-Really feeling the baby, she is a mover and groover. I feel her dancing in there all the time, especially at night when I am laying down. It kind of scares me how strong she is already since I'm not even half way there. I can't imagine what the kicks are going to feel like 10 weeks from now. Brian also felt her kick last night. I swear, is this normal? I wasn't expecting him to be able to feel her for awhile but her movements are strong and you can easily feel them with your hand pressed on my belly. I was so excited that Brian got to feel her. He had been trying so hard to feel her ever since I started feeling her move so it was really sweet.

Preparation- Nada. I still have yet to buy one thing for her. Sorry baby. :)

Miss Anything-not having to get up to go pee numerous times during the night. Blah.

Cravings- I don't think I have had a really strong craving yet. I think things sound good but I am usually too lazy to go to the store to get it so the craving passes. I think I need to make one up just so I can have Brian run to the grocery store at midnight or something. Well actually maybe not, if we were in AZ absolutely but I don't want Brian at the grocery store by our house at night. It's sketch. HA.

Maternity Clothes-Nope. My pants still fit like a charm and my shirts are still just fine. Most of my clothing you can't even tell I'm pregnant unless it's a tight shirt then I kind of just look chubby. I am anxious for the first stranger to ask me if I am pregnant. Thus far nothing.

I was telling Brian that I love this phase of being pregnant. I don't really look too much different, I feel totally normal, and I can eat all I want, it's great. I am anxious though for all the other milestones of being pregnant and then the whole actually having a baby thing will be cool too. I go for my 20 week ultrasound on the 22nd so I am excited to see the little thing again. She has always been insanely active so I am excited to see what she is up to that day. Perfect early birthday present.

Baby Bothwell-10-18 Weeks

I will officially be 18 weeks tomorrow and that means almost half way! Ever since the end of the 10th week I felt pretty amazing. I am not sick anymore and all of my appetite has come back. I am not as tired, still love a good afternoon nap though, and like I said not as emotional. Poor Brian had to deal with a serious crazy for awhile. Once I picked him up 10 minutes late from work and I was BAWLING. He thought something terrible had happened but really I was just sad I missed 10 minutes of hanging out with him. Ridiculous.
Brian and I moved to Connecticut a week and a half ago so we really wanted to find out the gender before we left all of our family. Thankfully my doctor in AZ is awesome and decided he wanted to know too so he did a quick little ultrasound at 15 1/2 weeks to just quickly find out the gender. Girl was not shy and we saw right away that there was no little wee-wee there and that we were having a GIRL! I had seriously thought it was a boy from the moment I found out I was pregnant. Everyone else was sure it was a girl though. So much for maternal instinct. That was on June 20th a Thursday and we were moving that Sunday with Brian's graduation and our going away party happening the next day. So we announced it to Brian's family and then as soon as my parents got there we announced it to them. Once again I always thought I would do something cute and creative but life is crazy. Moving across the country and your husband finishing his Doctorate and having family in town was busy so we just told everyone. It worked fine for us. :) My parents got to AZ and decided to take Brian and I out to dinner to celebrate him being done. We went to Tia Rosa's and as we were eating Brian was taking FOREVER to eat his dang flying saucer. We had all finished and there he was slowly eating away. I kept telling him to hurry it up but he said he was determined to finish it just had to do it slowly. I was confused but Brian has done that before with a rack of ribs so whatever. Afterwards we went driving around to show my parents houses, which was kind of weird but my mom likes looking at houses so once again, whatever. We ended back up at Aunt Denise's house where my parents were staying so that they could hurry and unpack before going to Joe and Colleens. As we drove up I swore I saw the Allred's but everyone brushed me off as being crazy. I just thought maybe they drove up to see my parents and were told we were at Aunt Denise's but after 3 people telling me I didn't see them I believed them. You never know when you are pregnant if you are being crazy or sane so I just went with crazy on that one. So we walked up to the house and walked in and SURPRISE! Colleen and Mel and my mom had thrown me a surprise baby shower! Brian's family and my friends were there and they had even decorated it all girly, which was impressive considering I had just told them I was having a girl at like noon. It was seriously the sweetest thing ever. I can't get over how loving it was for them to think of me and the babe when we all had SO much going on. I mean Colleen was throwing us a going away party that next night. Seriously the best. I loved being able to have that little celebration with family and friends considering I was moving here where I know no one. Still feel so blessed to have such an amazing family.

That Sunday we started our 40 hour 4 day drive to Connecticut and have since arrived and almost have settled in. I'm still feeling really great. I met with my new doctor out here on Wednesday and everything is looking good. I still haven't gained any weight which is crazy because my belly is growing. I don't understand but whatever. Apparently the practice is a team of midwives and a team of doctors that you see and the midwife will most likely deliver your baby unless something is wrong. The midwife I met was so nice so I'm grateful for that. I have an appointment for the 22nd to get my 20 week ultrasound where they measure everything and look for any abnormalities. I am so excited to see her again. At the quick gender ultrasound in AZ she was kicking and punching and crazy. Scares me a little to see how active she is. I think she might have her fathers energy. Anyways I'll post a few pictures of the bump and other things baby related. Maybe from here on out I will try to do a weekly update with a little form you just feel out. We will see, enjoy.

17 weeks

17 Weeks here

Baby Girl at 15 1/2 weeks. 

Baby Marci

Baby Brian-the stuff dreams are made of.

Could he be any cuter. Look at those rolls

Baby Bothwell-Telling the Grandparents

After our ultrasound I had a trip planned to Utah to photograph some engagements so I flew to Monticello the day after our doctors visit and Brian was going to drive up Thursday night to spend the weekend there. We were going to wait until Mothers day (that Sunday) to tell my parents but we decided it would be too hard for me to wait for 4 days to tell my mom. Especially when I would be with her a lot. So we made a plan to draw a baby on a white shirt and for me to wear it off the airplane when they picked me up. It was my Grandma Martha and Mom picking me up so I was very excited to tell those two hooligans. :) As soon as I got off I made sure to unbutton my outer shirt to reveal the white shirt with the baby drawn on. (Didn't want the whole airplane to know ;)) So I walk out and my mom and grandma storm me and are giving me big hugs and are totally oblivious to the shirt. I tell them to look down to which my grandma says "why are you wearing boots-its warm outside." and my mom says "Did you spill something on your pants?". Totally not getting it! I finally said "NO, look at my belly!". They finally saw the baby and asked if I was serious and then burst into tears. It was especially emotional for my parents because after 8 months of trying to have a baby in secret I confided in them my troubles. They were already forming plans on how to pay for me to get in-vitro so they were SO happy and grateful that I wasn't going to have to go through all the heartbreak of fertility drugs and procedures. We went and got lunch and cried a little more and then shopped for a bit before I was so tired that I had to sleep in the car while they went in the mall. That was another symptom-tired ALL the time. Some of it probably came from the fact that I had to go potty about 3 times in the middle of the night every night. ugh-still have this problem. My body must be preparing me for the sleepless nights with a newborn.

(This video kind of stinks since I was trying to not be obvious that I was recording but its mostly for my  memory sake.)

After that we hurried and rushed home to tell my daddy. It was fun because my mom was able to record it on her phone. His facial expression was priceless and many more tears were shed. It was so much fun to be able to tell them. I felt a little bad not having Brian there but he understood how excited I was to tell them and it was fun to have him come up a few days later and be able to re-celebrate once he got there.

We left Monticello on Mothers day bright and early to get home to AZ before the big family party to tell Brian's parents. Colleen is a big quilter so we went and picked out a girl fabric swatch and a boy fabric swatch and wrapped them up in some ultrasound pictures to give to her for mothers day. They were surprised but Colleen had said she had a feeling since we kept putting off our sky diving trip. Haha, definitely can't do that while pregnant. More tears and lots of happy screams were made. It was great. I have definitely been an emotional monster throughout this whole process. Thankfully the hormones are mellowing out a bit and I don't cry at EVERYTHING just most things. :) 

Baby Bothwell-The first 9 weeks.

So we were obviously very excited to find out that we were having a bebe but we also had always  planned on not telling anyone until around week 10-12. That was going to be a challenge considering we were living with Brian's sisters family and I was around them a lot while Brian was work. The first couple of weeks (4-6) weren't bad. We hiked and camped in Yosemite and did all of our normal activities so I thought possibly I was going to be lucky and not get too sick. Then week 7 hit and the all sickies came with it. I was constantly queasy. Like I always felt like I was on the verge of throwing up and food sounded SO nasty. All food. It was a bummer because food was the one thing that actually made me feel better. I was choking down saltines and ginger ale like crazy. This is where things probably became suspicious for Mel and Mikey. Luckily, there little girl Brooke had been sick a few weeks earlier so I just played it off that seeing her drink ginger ale made me want some. We also did our best to hide the saltines but there were times when we couldn't hide everything. One day Mikey saw me drinking ginger ale and eating the saltines and he asked if I was feeling okay. I quickly lied that I was totally fine and that saltines and ginger ale were one of my favorite snacks. He bought it. Silly Mikey. :) Around week 8 it wasn't getting way to hard to hide it and frankly not worth it. No one wants to pretend like they feel fine when they feel icky so Brian and I snuck home from church and wrote out baby on their dining room table in my saltines and ginger ale. They acted surprised which surprised me because I thought I wasn't doing a very good job hiding it. It was fun being able to tell them in person too!

(The big reveal. )

(How I felt for the first 10 weeks)

I think for the next week and a half that we were there Brooke drew me 50 pictures of me with babies or just of a new little baby. She was very excited, so adorable. I was still so nervous throughout all this time that I was going to miscarriage. I was SO incredibly anxious to get to the doctor and hear that little heartbeat. So at 9 weeks we made the 12 hour drive home to AZ. We only had to wait 3 days until we could go to the doctor. Sadly, Brian started his new rotation that day so he was unable to come with me but it was the best feeling ever to see our little gummy bear in there. From the very first ultrasound she has been insanely active. Even when she literally looked like a gummy bear she was squirming all over the screen. It was also incredible to be able to see a little 4 chamber heart beating nice and strong in such a little human.

Now we just had to figure out how to tell the parents.

Baby Bothwell-Finding out.

I am really not good at blogging but with the new little baby coming AND being across the country from our entire family I figured I better start back up again. Plus, it will be good to get in the habit of documenting memories so that I will be ready to blog more once the little gal gets here. So why not start there- Baby Bothwell.

Brian and I found out we were pregnant on Saturday April 6th 2013. We had been wanting to have a baby for awhile and I had actually gone off the pill a year earlier. So we were actually expecting to have already had a child at this point but it turned out that the year we were trying to have a baby was one of the best of our lives! Lots of traveling, camping, hiking, and adventures so it might have been a blessing in disguise that it took us a year to conceive. Although that year had it's shares of ups and downs-I had to set up an appointment with a fertility specialist which is really sad,
so I was especially glad when I got to cancel that appointment and schedule an ultrasound instead!

So back to finding out we were pregnant-Brian and I had been living in Piedmont with his sister Melanie and family for a couple weeks while Brian was on rotation. We had been hiking a ton and so since it was a Saturday of course we were out hiking. I was a few days late (sorry if that is TMI) which was unusual for me but I wasn't getting my hopes up after many months of failed pregnancy tests. We went and did this beautiful 8 mile hike in the Muir woods and I just kept thinking I needed to take a test. Brian wasn't really wanting me to until 7 days past my missed period (such a pharmacist) since the tests are expensive and he didn't want me to be sad again. So I kinda kept putting it off but on the drive home I convinced him that I needed to know so we hurried into a pharmacy on the way home from the hike. We hurried home and I headed to the bathroom to shower. I did my business on the stick while the shower was warming up-totally expecting a negative sign to show up when to my surprise it came back positive! I screamed for Brian to come into the bathroom to show him. So I told my husband I was pregnant while being buck nakey sitting on the toilet. Classy. NOT at all how I was ever expecting to tell him but after 12 months of trying I was in shock and really, really excited! I immediately wanted to take the other test but Brian insisted I wait overnight. LONGEST night of my life. I woke up at 5:30 and took the other one to which came back positive too! We were pregnant!