Bumpdate: 17 weeks

Sometimes it feels like baby Green will be here in no time flat, and other times I think I may have this little food-baby pooch forever. But it's just the beginning!

Looking a life from a new angle these days - so is Willa.

This was around 15-16 weeks

It's interesting to suddenly be in planning mode for a little one who is still 5-6 months away! My spare time is spent trying to exercise, researching the most minimal/multi-purpose baby gear, trying out names and staring at my tummy wondering what baby is up to. I'm also working on sewing a little stuffed animal for this baby, and if it turns out well at all you'll see it here. We find out the gender February 22, and I will cast my vote now, I think it's a girl and Cody does too :)

Also, I think I've felt baby move a few times! It happens in the evening usually when I sit and read and all is still. There's a little "pop" feel in my lower abdomen like a tiny bubble bursting which apparently may be this little person.

BUMPDATE

• Baby// Five inches long. S/he can hear me, can see light and sucks and swallows. I've been trying to sing more around the house for baby, and this weekend we got a 65 degree sunny day so I was able to get some sunshine on my belly too :)

• Feeling// Still getting sleepy by 6:30 p.m. nearly every evening, but it's nothing like the all-day exhaustion that laid me out in the first trimester. Sleeping is still my happy place though. 

• Eating// At last, I want to eat everything! But, I've also cooked some pretty bad stuff. I think my sense of smell is just off since I've messed up quite a few dinners lately. Smoothies are one of my favorites, and though I still think about Spaghetti O's that were my staple in trimester one, I now have the willpower to not buy them.

• Planning// Looking into prenatal yoga and birth classes. Since we're likely moving early in May, we think it's best to knock the classes out now in the 2nd trimester. I'm also looking hard at the baby gear world and compiling an Amazon wish list that I'm going to pare down with what I think we'll need most. There is so. much. stuff. and my goal with this child is to not have too much. We plan to find things that are sleek, strong, and multi-purpose for years to come.

So far, all is well and we're very, very grateful for that. Cody and I are sensitive that these are some of our last months as just the two of us, which is pretty bittersweet.  We've had nearly six years together and have done so much, but I find myself basking in the moments that are still only ours. We're both still in shock that we get to do this at all to be honest, and we try to pray for us and our little every day for the best possible future :) 

A summertime sprout!

This is the craziest life post I have ever written because Cody and I having a BABY THIS SUMMER! Actually the craziest will be sometime in early summer when we're moving to a new state (don't know where yet) and about to have a baby at the same time.

Consider this my first "bumpdate." I am fourteen weeks along this coming Thursday, and Baby Green is the size of a peach and is due in mid-July!

In this post I wanted to capture what my first trimester was like. It's not to complain because it could've been a lot worse, but to add another data point to the map of pregnant women everywhere. If a rosy preggo glow is indeed in my future, then bring it b/c I'm ready!

Dating in 2010, Wedding in 2014, Baby in 2016! The years have a mind of their own.

We always knew we wanted babies but figured we'd start trying in a few years. Well, on Friday, November 13, 2015 the test was positive...we now like to say baby was in our five year plan, but four years early ;)

What led me to take a test (besides the observations that often accompany early pregnancy) was the boot camp class I'd started and was very excited about. The third week in, I could not figure out why I wasn't getting any better at any of it. In fact I'd been getting worse every week. I was clumsy and slow, and spent a lot of time standing in one place with my water bottle glued to my face just watching everyone else kick butt.

I'll never forget wandering into the bedroom that early November morning with the positive test in my shaky hands as I handed it to Cody. I took two more that day that were both positive, and time stood still. It kind of has ever since.

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The first trimester was hard in ways I couldn't have imagined. I didn't have any morning sickness, just nausea the two times I took a prenatal vitamin with no food (don't do it) and developed an intense hatred of Thanksgiving food, my favorite meal of the year.

What I got in my cards was exhaustion.

This tiredness was nothing I've ever known. It sapped my energy, my brain power, my motivation to cook anything or literally do anything, and had me on the floor by 3 p.m. Even though baby's literally building itself from scratch at that point, all I wanted to eat was Spaghetti O's and pineapple (sorry baby!!).  And hardest of all, the exhaustion sucked away who I was which I was NOT expecting or had ever heard of.

It felt like the girl I normally was had gone to Mars and left a shell of a person who was surviving from the help of her husband and God. I'm a pretty happy-go-lucky person, but I was about as cheerful as a flat tire from November to about the end of last week. Pretty much every aspect of my life suffered from it.

But I'M BACK! I'm here to tell you it ends ( as my mother-in-law gently told me over Christmas) and you will go back to being yourself again, or until month six I hear. And once you see your little baby kicking and moving at the first ultrasound, you'll wonder how you ever felt like crap.

We are beyond humbled and excited that we get to raise this person. This is a special gift to us from the hands of heaven and it's our constant prayer that he/she is healthy and strong, and becomes a loving human being full of wonder.

I had no idea how mobile such tiny babies are in utero. Baby kept rolling over, and kicking its legs out so it was hard to get a good shot.

Cody and I love this picture of its little legs! It looks like its patiently waiting for summer...