Pregnancy Recap: Weeks 13-16

Here are a few more pregnancy weekly recaps... I'm in the middle of week 21 now, so we're almost caught up... sort of. Haha!

Week 13:
The doctor's suggestion of vitamin B6 combined with Unisom is helping a bit with the nausea, but not much. I'm hoping this first trimester sickness ends soon! Most of my clothes still fit fine, but I had a hard time squeezing into my jeans for jeans Friday at work, so I bought my first maternity clothes - a pair of jeans from Target. The elastic waist is so comfortable! I think I'd like to wear them even when I'm not pregnant. :)

Week 14:
We spent a long weekend on South Padre Island with my family, and it was a wonderful, relaxing trip (and I only threw up a few times...).

When we got back, we told the rest of our close friends about the baby, and I told my boss and HR the news at work. It's exciting to finally be able to stop keeping secrets!

Week 15:
We put a pregnancy announcement on the blog and Facebook. What fun to finally share the news with everyone! We feel very loved and supported.

My blood pressure readings were inching higher and higher again, so I'm back on the blood pressure medication. I'm not super happy about it because the medication makes me feel kind of drowsy and light-headed, but I feel really blessed that I have a wonderful doctor that I really trust, especially since I'm technically a "high-risk pregnancy" with the blood pressure issues.

15 weeks! Still wearing regular clothes for the most part... :)

Week 16:
I felt the baby move a little! What an odd and amazing feeling! I absolutely love it... such a nice reminder that baby is in there and doing well! The nausea is finally letting up, thank goodness, but I've started to get random nosebleeds, which is apparently pregnancy-related. I'm drinking TONS of milk, partially because it helps with the heartburn (and I am so, so sick of chewing on Tums... yuck), and partially because it just sounds good all the time! I was never a milk drinker before being pregnant (like, the thought of drinking milk out of a glass made me gag a little), so it's pretty weird that I'm enjoying it so much! I also like grapes now, after a lifetime of picking them out of fruit salads because I hated the taste and texture of them. Pregnancy is funny!

I feel like the nausea/vomiting is starting to slow down (and I'm hoping it does actually stop soon!). 

The Second Guest Room

Since I've never photographed our second guest bedroom with the dSLR camera, and it's about to become the baby's room, I figured I'd better take a few photos before we start tearing it apart for prepare for the baby! I actually did a post on this room a while back, but some things have changed since then, so I wanted to do an update of the guest bedroom in it's "finished" state, just before being converted into the nursery!

We took the white mirror that used to hang over the bed and put it in the craft room so this little "B" (a DIY gift from my cousin) took its place!

Wedding photos from us, our parents, and our grandparents (Jeff's grandparents lost their photos, so we had to settle for individual portraits from the same time period.) These are a wedding DIY project re-used. :)

I've learned from personal experience that it can be a little uncomfortable as a guest if your room doesn't have (1) a mirror and (2) a trash can. So I made sure to add both to this room! I love this aqua wood mirror (which ended up working out, since we took the other wood mirror out of the room), and the little white trash can to the left of the desk was a cheap addition that makes the room more comfortable for our guests!

Ancient TV. Ugly, but it gets used, so we've kept it here. It's headed straight for the church garage sale though once this becomes the nursery!

Ceiling fans are a MUST in bedrooms in Texas. It definitely limits your options for cute lighting, but comfort beats style when it comes to Texas summer heat!

I adore this bedding! I just love the dainty red flowers so much. So simple but so cute!

I feel a sort of special sentimentality toward this room because it was the first room we finished in the house, and even before that we had a version of this room (same furniture, same color scheme, etc.) in our old apartment. This room has always been a very low-budget endeavor, and I'm kind of proud that we were able to create a comfortable space for guests by combining a lot of low-cost items (honestly, I think just about everything in this room came from Wal-Mart, Ikea, or HomeGoods!). 

Source List:

Dresser, Bed, Bedside table - Ikea HEMNES

Lamps and shades - Wal-Mart

Desk - Wal-Mart 

Curtain, black alarm clock - IKEA

Curtain rod, aqua mirror, aqua flower pillow, white frames, sand timer, red birds, red bowl & potpourri, and aqua frame - HomeGoods

Black and red candlesticks, "Happy" sign, red glass vase, black frames - Hobby Lobby

Duvet, red pillows - IKEA

Red and black box, hanging "B," black clock - gifts

Stick figure art - DIY

We're going to paint the bed, dresser, desk, and nightstand white. The dresser and nightstand will stay in here for the nursery. The bed will just get stored for a while (disassembled underneath our other guest bed) until we (1) have a child old enough for a big bed, or (2) move into a house with more bedrooms, but we're going to go ahead and paint it first so all the furniture matches so we can use it in the future. The desk is probably going to go under the window in the craft room... we'll see! 

Now I just need to find a new spot for those family wedding photos... :) 

It's a...

Boy!!!

We are so, so excited!

We actually found out when I was about 16 1/2 weeks pregnant. The original plan was to wait until the 20-week anatomy ultrasound, but we were really curious (ok, mostly me... Jeff was fine), and there's a place right by our house that does a sex determination ultrasound any time after 14 weeks for $60... and they had an appointment on a Saturday morning so we just went and did it!

It was kind of a last-minute thing, so none of our family/friends knew we were going to find out that day. It ended up being a really special moment... the ultrasound tech took her time showing us the baby from all different angles and it was so much nicer than an ultrasound at the doctor's office!

Two little baby feet!

3-D ultrasound shot! 

Our baby was perfectly positioned for us to be able to tell too... right when the ultrasound tech flipped on the display screen, I said "Oh, this is going to be so nice... we haven't seen the baby in a while!" and she responded "You haven't seen him in a while!" So it only took her about two seconds to be able to tell that he's a little boy! Haha. I cried happy tears when I found out.

I think I would've been just as happy had he been a girl, but I was just so happy to finally know! I had been having a hard time picturing the baby as an actual part of our family, and once I knew he was a boy it was like I was finally able to actually picture it in my head, and the picture was so lovely that I just cried! Definitely worth finding out four weeks earlier than planned!

We invited our families over for dinner that night (we have everyone over semi-often, so no one suspected anything), and we surprised them with the news. We decorated the kitchen, used "It's a boy" plates and napkins, and dressed in all blue with little "It's a boy" buttons.

Everyone was so excited! Oddly enough, everyone showed up wearing either blue or black/white. It's like they subconsciously knew or something!

With my parents and sister (my other sister was out of town).

With Jeff's dad, brothers and our soon-to-be sister-in-law (Jeff's mom was out of town). 

So exciting! Haha.

We are just totally thrilled, and we can't wait to meet our little boy! 

Baby News: Telling the Extended Family

Since we shared the baby news with our immediate families on Mother's Day, it seemed appropriate to share the news with our grandparents on Father's Day! We bought a little "I love my Great Grandpa" onesie and wrapped it up for our grandfathers as a Father's Day gift. We drove to Plano/McKinney/Fort Worth for the weekend, along with my parents and my sister, Karoline. We were looking forward to telling everyone, but we had no idea we'd get such amazing reactions from all of our grandparents! Lots of cute grandparent photos ahead...

We celebrated Father's Day with my mom's dad and a bunch of my aunts, uncles, and cousins with dinner the night before Father's Day. Gran-dad opened the onesie and (after initially thinking we had given him a pair of underwear) was very excited!

"I think they got me underwear!"

Check out Gran-mom's face! :)

Great-grandparents to be!

(if it looks like I'm suffering from all-day morning sickness in this photo, it's because I was...)

Four generations!

We were staying at my dad's parents' house, so after Mass Sunday morning we gave Grandpa his gift to open.

We had lunch at Maggiano's with my aunt, uncle, cousin, and her fiance, and Grandpa was really excited to share the news at lunch. While we were sitting at lunch, he casually pulled the onesie out and just set it on his shirt. My aunt and uncle's reactions were priceless!

Ready to go into the restaurant... onesie hiding in the bag!

We had dinner on Father's Day with Jeff's grandparents, so we gave Grandaddy the onesie to open when we got to their house that afternoon. He was so excited, and he hung it up on their photo bookshelf!

Jeff's Grandma: "Oh, finally! I hoped we'd live long enough to see this!" :) 

The pictures don't even begin to convey the absolute joy we felt that weekend. This little baby is so, so blessed to be joining a family full of people are so excited and loving!