It's a....

So last week I was in Salt Lake City, and let me say - it's one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen. You fly in and see this:

Mountains and the Great Salt Lake!

But everything else is totally flat! Then you drive into the city and it's just got the most gorgeous backdrop to a city I've ever seen.

Like Seriously?!

I did some walking around town and wandered through the Mormon Temple Square. They had some gorgeous buildings there.

Had my first In-And-Out Burger experience. YUM. Brad is still SO jealous.

And here's the view from my flight home!

Overall, the conference was a bit of a bust. It was an awkward mix of people for me to talk to, but hopefully we get some okay leads out of it in the end.

I flew back into town on Saturday and hung out with my brother for a bit. Then on Sunday I met my friend and her 7 month old for breakfast. She gave me the lowdown on registry items to get and avoid, which was pretty helpful.

And on Monday we got to see our sweet little baby again!!!!

Brad had to know (almost immediately) whether it was a boy or a girl. Luckily the baby was super photogenic and flaunted it right away, so we found out that IT'S A GIRL!

We listened to her heartbeat - a solid 148 bpm.

Look at her sitting with her legs crossed! Just like a little lady :)

Little baby footprints! Her feet are only 4 cenitmeters long right now.

Covering her face with her hands.

But once we switched to 3D, we got a great shot of our beautiful little girl!

I'm pretty convinced she has my nose :) Brad thinks I'm nuts, but we'll see. Either way, it feels so amazing to feel her rolling around and kicking all the time and know that this is what she looks like! She was moving around a lot during the scan, and the tech said we were going to have our hands full with this one :) Based on her measurements, she's got some loooong legs (not surprising, since Brad and I are both tall) and weighed 1 lb 4 oz. I think that's also a little bit bigger than most babies at 22 weeks, but as long as she's healthy I don't really care too much. Her heart and organ development all looked great, which was such a relief. Now we just need to wait until August to meet her! 

Last but not least, I'll finish with a belly pic:

Some outfits moreso than others, but I'm starting to look noticeably pregnant. Yowza!

Whoops

So I'm 21, almost 22 weeks along now! I can feel the baby move pretty regularly these days, and it's absolutely amazing. Brad has been able to feel him/her kick a few times now and loves it. I'm glad he's finally able to feel it too - I felt so bad every time the baby would kick and I would be like 'did you feel it?!' and he would look all dejected and say no.

We are getting SO anxious to figure out if it's a boy or a girl. My appointment is scheduled for Monday and I just can't wait! I'm actually sitting in an airport now on my way to Salt Lake City for a conference, so that should help the time between now and Monday fly by.

We toured our first daycare last week. It's all so surreal! This place (First Steps) seemed great, but it was really expensive and they don't offer part-time care -- two big hiccups to our current plan. We'll see how it all works out though! We're touring a bunch more on Monday after the ultrasound.

Here's my belly pic from last week. I'll take another one soon. I'm slowly feeling more-pregnant-less-chubby, so that's definitely nice.

Halfway there

Hmmmm... This should have posted a while ago but didn't. Whoops.

I'm 20 weeks along as of Wed/Thurs/yesterday (depending on which due date you go by...)

Baby is the size of a banana! Huge, right?! 6.5 inches long. No wonder my belly is starting to pop out a little more.

I think I can feel him/her moving around from time to time. It's hard to be sure though - my stomach is pretty active and noisy, so it might just be that and wishful thinking. I can't wait until I know without a doubt :)

So far I've gained about 5 pounds. I'm okay with that, so we'll see how it continues. Cravings include random meals here and there (and Brad is wonderful about obliging), but mostly center around Mexican food. Thursday after class I was having such a strong desire for chips and salsa, I actually stopped at the store on my way home (and then polished off half a bag). Classy.

I got some new maternity clothes from thredup - an online gently used clothing boutique. Brad thinks it's weird, but you only wear them for such a short amount of time - I think it makes sense to buy brand name clothes for $8-$10 that have only been worn a few times! Plus it's free shipping and returns, so no real risk! I've got a few returns to make this weekend, but really liked most of it!

It's supposed to be a gorgeous 70 degrees today, so we're heading out to a vineyard for some wine tasting (actually the vineyard we got married at, so I'm happy to just hang out there!) then to watch the UVA lacrosse game! Tomorrow has church, waffles, and homework on the menu, with the UVA basketball second round game at night.

It's shaping up to be a wonderful weekend! Go Hoos!

20 week bump pic:

Wahoowa!

That's all I've really got to say! My wahoos have won the ACC regular season and defeated those annoying Dukies for the tournament championship today! Plus we were rewarded with a #1 seed in the tournament.

I hope we can make it to the final 4, but right now I'm just trying to embrace the joy that is Hooville right now!

It makes this 6 inches of snow were supposed to get tonight (despite it being 70 degree yesterday....) slightly more bearable.

Wahoowa!

Xoxo

Oops

So I have been doing a terrible job updating this lately. I don't really have any excuse - things are the normal level of busy, I'm feeling great these days, everything is wonderful. I just keep forgetting and putting it off.

So here we go. Corey got us some new baby girl clothes (to go alongside the baby boy clothes she bought us last month). They're absolutely adorable. I can't wait to find out which ones our little baby will be wearing!

Katie got me a birthday present to read to the baby. Wahoowa!

And besides that, things are moving along smoothly. The bump is starting to get a little more pronounced and I've gained about 5 lbs to this point, but otherwise nothing too exciting. I really love being pregnant - the only annoying part is that I've been sleeping terribly lately, but last night I didn't wake up at all, so I'm hoping my body figured it out and we'll be good for at least a little while!

The last several bump pics I forgot to upload...

23 days until we find out if the nursery will be blue or pink!

xoxo

Y'all.

I have been terrible about keeping up with this. And taking bump pictures. Really all of it. So this will probably be a doozie of a post.

So last I checked in, I was on a plane to Seattle. Brad and I had a great time checking out the city (and thankfully spent a lot of time relaxing too, which was much-needed). It's probably easier to recount in picture-form, so here we go.

Coffee as delicious as it was pretty! (Decaf for me...)

Gorgeous weather wandering around the city. So we wandered up to the business district and went to the top of the Columbia Center to take advantage of a beautiful day and 360 degree views:

Then we hopped in the car and drove over to gasworks park. It was really cool -  an old industrial center that now is a beautiful park with great city views!

On Saturday it was a little rainy, so we stuck to eating delicious food and drove out to Snowqualmie Falls for a quick photo-op. It was so cold and windy, we didn't stay long. But it was beautiful and there was so much water! Very impressive.

The trip back was uneventful. We missed the foot of snow that was dumped on Charlottesville, so that was nice. It did mean I had a few classes get cancelled while we were gone, which luckily meant I was actually less behind than originally anticipated. Woohoo!

Last Monday went by slowly... Dealing with jetlag is no fun. I had my monthly checkup on Tuesday morning. Showed up at 10:30 to find out my appointment was actually at 9:30. Oops. They were awesome and squeezed me in anyways. Heard baby's heartbeat - 160 bpm! In and out, everything is looking good.

Until two hours later. 

I had been feeling a little nauseous before my appointment. Nothing crazy, just like breakfast wasn't sitting quite right. I went to my appointment, got back to the office, and about two hours later ran to the bathroom and threw up what little breakfast I had eaten. Return of morning sickness? Awesome.

Then an hour later I threw up again.

Then again.

And again.

By 2:00, I was getting a little nervous. I wasn't even able to keep down saltine crackers and ginger ale. Even water made me throw up! I hadn't kept anything down all day, so I called my OB back. "Yeah, I know everything was fine this morning, but now all hell has broken loose..."

The nurse told me that there was a nasty 24 hour bug going around, so she prescribed me some meds to help stop the vomiting so I could at least keep fluids down.

I missed work Wednesday (but did manage to take my midterm that I was supposed to do Tuesday night), but drank lots of Pedialyte and took multiple naps.

By Thursday, I was feeling back to ~90%, which was good because it was my birthday!

I got this hilarious card/text from my brother, Bobby (Sour Patch Kids Glamour Shots is the next big thing, ya know), and Brad cooked me a delicious porkchop dinner with angel food cake and strawberries for dessert. Besides that, it was lots of relaxing and recovering.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were more of the same. Just trying to get my energy levels back up. I lost about 3 pounds in one day, which put me back down below my pre-pregnancy weight (which isn't good!). I've gained a little more than a pound back, so I'm about a pound up right now. Okay, but something I'll have to keep an eye on.

The bump is definitely there though! Maybe not quite so obvious in pictures, but in real life it actually is starting to look more pregnancy and less post-burrito-lunch. I really can't wait to get a real obvious bump that leaves no question :)

Most recent bump pics:

And today I'm rocking my first pair of maternity pants. Boy are they comfy... and fit me a lot better than my "fat pants with a rubber band" that I've been wearing... I might have to make the switch.
Still sticking with regular/longer shirts though. No need to get all flowy just yet.

Okay. So that's the goings on around here. Hopefully I can remember to post more often than once every two weeks!

Update

Well I wrote this on Wednesday but just got around to posting it today... Whoops.

So things have been a little hectic lately. My bosses graduate school advisor passed away, so I stepped up and went to a trade show in his place last Thursday and Friday in DC. It definitely wasn't horrible, but it certainly wasn't home.

I got home on Saturday afternoon just in time to hang out with Brad's parents. They were visiting for the weekend which is always great - I just felt bad missing half their trip!

On Sunday we went to run some errands, which included a quick stop by Babies-R-Us. We had a lot of fun pushing strollers (I like ones that fold easily and are tall at the handlebars - two things I wouldn't have thought of!) and looking and baby things. It was definitely a reminder of how expensive this endeavor is going to be. As much as we can appreciate gifts from our parents and family/friends, they won't be gifting us the big things like a crib and rocking chair and a dresser. Those are things were going to have to start looking for now!

So we want to make sure we go for function over fashion on these - picking out a chair that will work for nighttime feedings but also for reading stories to our eventual toddler(s)? Furniture that the child can grow with - and maybe take to college someday (though I doubt we'll spend enough for something that high quality!) We want to make sure that these purchases are the right ones, so we're going to have to get started with some research!!

On Tuesday I left for NJ with my boss and another coworker. I knocked my presentation out of the park, and they dropped me off at the airport where I'm currently on my way to meet Brad in Seattle for some fun! Let me just say - My goodness traveling is a pain when you're pregnant. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just me, but I feel bad asking them to stop every hour like I want to, so I have to basically dehydrate myself instead. Yuck. Also, a pregnant girls gotta eat! Thank goodness I've been good about keeping snacks on hand. There were a few times I thought I was going to be sick from a lack of eating (if that even makes sense). Besides that, I've been feeling great.  Still a little tired and run down, but nothing too terrible. I know this is the easy phase, but so far I love being pregnant!

That's all I got for now. Belly pic to come soon, I swear. It's really there now. I couldn't wear half my dress clothes this week at this presentation. Thank goodness for the belly band and hiding completely unbuttoned pants. Shhhh don't tell anyone.