drum roll please.....

cute little fat face!

cool alien skull

baby's little spine.. you can make out the body form and legs.


AND..... it's a boy!!!!
the voters were right (20 for a boy, 16 for a girl)

we found out that we are a week further than we thought, so as of today, I am half way there! 20 weeks! we are both now really excited and I can't wait to see and hold him. feels like too long to go still. my belly is growing bigger and bigger, although I've only gained about 12 pounds since the beginning.

The other day we went to rob's nana's for dinner, and it turned out to be a surprise baby shower!! it was so nice to see the whole family and everyone together. it made it feel very real to open up all the tiny little baby outfits and imagine that soon our son will be wearing them. it was a really nice evening full of stories, haha good and bad about babies & kids!

so we are in the process of frantically packing up the house, our movers called and are coming tomorrow, a day early. we are hoping to have everything all taken care of and have our landlord go through the house on saturday and be on the road! it's going to be an interesting road trip to say the least... 4 kitties in the back of the SUV behind a gate, a snake in a tank on the back seat, a gecko in a travel tank on top of him, our little ferret girl in a cat carrier behind the seat on the floor, our mouse in his cage on the other side, and our husky girl aurora will have a seat to herself in the back but will probably be taking over the passenger seat the whole time. "pet friendly motels" beware, a travelling zoo is coming through.

bursting bubbles

So last night, oddly enough after watching Juno, we were laying in bed with all the pets just relaxing and I felt the baby move!! Our littlest and loudest kitty was laying on my belly right over the baby purring away and I guess the baby was responding to her. I felt it move three times. It felt kinda like a bubble gum bubble bursting. It was pretty exciting! Today I have felt it twice as well. I'm guessing I better enjoy these little flutters now before they start to feel like a little baby with boots on kicking me.

growing...

a picture of the growing belly, and the maternity jeans!

busy daze..

Well we are into week 16, day 108! My belly is finally starting to show, and definitely feels like it has been growing. We have started hitting up maternity stores and I thought I would dread trying to fit into those elastic banded jeans, but they are actually amazingly comfortable! I'm passed all the morning sickness which has been really awesome and food is now my best friend! Just feel tired alot and have been getting some cramps called 'growing pains'.

We have decided that it is in our best interest, mostly for financial reasons, to move back to Ontario into my mom's house. It's bittersweet (like the sour candies I've been craving everyday) but it's for the best! We have our truck booked for the end of April, and my oh my if being pregnant and moving wasn't stressful enough, trying to jam the move in by the end of the month is driving me crazy! But, it will all work out and Rob has been working very hard to keep things running smooth. Rob has finished working for now to try to get the house packed up, and I will be working up until the 25th or so. Stressful!!

This week I am going for some bloodwork to detect if I am in a risk category at all for Downs Syndrome and then our next ultrasound is April 23rd. I can't wait! It's hopefully the one that we find out if it's a little boy or girl! Sooo we will definitely post an update and pictures after the ultrasound, and baby co-operating, announce who it is!

ultrasound ultraexcited

a front view of the baby, its facial features, arm & little hand, and weird little legs

the back of the baby, shoulders & hips

the babys profile and little face, slight view of the spine & brain

yay! ultrasound! almost didn't make it between clocks reading wrong, directions to pick up rob in a small town being confused, dead cell phone, almost running out of gas, and almost getting, a speeding ticket all the while ready to burst after drinking all the required water, we made it. haha with 7 minutes of our appointment time left! i had to pee SO bad by this point, she started the ultrasound and told me i could go empty a cup of my bladder, ha! trying to stop midstream was a challenge. but i managed and went back to the room. the ultrasound tech was not happy, got to her business and wasn't going to let rob in the room. she did all her measurements though and then called rob in and we looked at the monitor together. it was pretty amazing!

the baby was so active, we could see all its little fingers and spine, ribs, and brain... it was really awesome! the baby is 7.28cm long from head to bum not including the legs, it's heartbeat was 158 beats per minute and we are officially at 13weeks and 3 days. the baby was waving its arms and flipping all around. i could have watched that monitor for so long! the tech said it was too early to determine sex, so we'll be waiting until the next one to hear that news! (although rob insists he can see its a boy, lol)

st. patricks day cheer without the beer..

so today is st. patricks day, and if we are right on our self predicted date of conception, today is the end of the first trimester! yay! maybe that will mean no more throwing up and being super sleepy alll the time?? i hope so...

so up until this point:
on january 28th i decided to take an at home pregnancy test (from the dollar store), and it gave me a positive result.. uhh rob, you might wanna come take a look at this... so we were very skeptical (dollar store test..) so that afternoon we went to planned parenthood where another test confirmed that we were indeed having a baby.
rob: excited
christin: scared
so we were in shock all afternoon and decided to make all the family calls. some went better than others, but in general there was mostly happiness. or at least it would turn into happiness eventually after the shock of it all.

so from january until now i've been getting quite sick at work since smells are overwhelming and i've also been extremely tired, i didn't really think being pregnant would feel this awful! also, i definitely miss coffee and beer and wine but its a worthwhile sacrifice. even though i was waiting for roll up the rim to return since i was a twice daily customer, but oh well.
i have had a few cravings that have had us running to stores or restaurants but nothing too weird.

march 10th was our first doctors appointment. we are going to a group here in edmonton called mom care which is a group of 6 OBgyn female doctors. you meet with all of them throughout the pregnancy and during delivery day whichever doctor is oncall that day will deliver.
my weight was 55.9kg or 123lbs. and we got to hear the baby's heartbeat!! that was really exciting, as it made it feel real. like there actually IS a baby in there and i dont just have some parasite or flu making me feel sick. the baby's heartbeat was 166 beats per minute. sounded like a little hummingbird!
my belly is definitely starting to show now, will post some pictures soon. updates on wednesday with the news from our first ultrasound.... ahh! hope we find out if its a boy or a girl. oh and
rob: very excited
christin: very excited