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| Photo Credit: Susannah Jane Neal http://www.seejanesnapphoto.com/ |
Sorry folks, for being so "backblogged", as they call it. The past couple of months have been so busy! We have been traveling a lot, I have started working, and we also have a sweet baby girl on the way. Yes, that's right. If you didn't catch the hints in my previous blog posts, it's true, I am pregnant with our first child and I couldn't be more excited about it!
We first found out we were expecting in the beginning of August 2011. My family was out in Europe to visit us, and Dallin had noticed that I was acting a little weird. I was really irritable, and Dallin told me that I was being really mean to my siblings. Which I later felt horrible about, because they had traveled such a long way to come and visit us. I'm sorry family! We found out a couple of days later that the reason why I was acting so weird is because I was a couple weeks pregnant and my hormones were going crazy!
On one of the days my family was visiting, we traveled to Pisa, Italy to see the Leaning Tower and the Field of Miracles. Dallin and I had become suspicious that I may be pregnant. So we slipped away from my family to an Italian pharmacy, saying that we needed to get some medicine for Dallin, because his stomach was not feeling very well (this was actually true, but our main motivation for going to the pharmacy was to buy a pregnancy test). I wanted to wait to take the test until we got back to our apartment in Lucca, but Dallin couldn't wait that long and made me take it in the bathrooms for the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Luckily, these bathrooms were quite clean and well-maintained. :) Sure enough, I got a positive result on the test! Although, I had to double check with my Italian translator app on my phone to make sure I was reading the test right.
Incinta= pregnant
Non Incinta= not pregnant
Dallin was ecstatic, despite his stomach issues. The poor guy was not feeling well at all. I was excited too, but mostly in shock! I was just not expecting it to happen so quickly.
When we met up with my family again, we told them the exciting news and we had a happy family moment there at the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
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| Me, Daddy Dallin, and creeper Grandpa Barry are all excited about the news. |
After we got back to Vicenza, from traveling around Italy with my family, Dallin and I set up our first appointment with the OB and our first ultrasound. It was so cool to see our little bambina on the screen and hear her heartbeat for the first time!
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| first photo of our baby girl! |
My first trimester went by pretty well. I wasn't too morning sick. I only tossed my cookies about 3 times during the whole trimester. I mostly just didn't have an appetite during those months and had to just force myself to eat. But taking out the trash and doing the dishes was tough. Those smells did not sit well with me, and I could not touch any sort of Italian food with a ten-foot pole. It would just make me feel sick! Dallin was also gone a lot during the first trimester, doing a bunch of training in Germany. So that was tough not to have anyone to take care of me when I wasn't feeling well, especially when I got really bad food poisoning and a couple of colds because of my suppressed immune system. Luckily, I got to take a trip to Danville when Dallin was on one of his long trainings. It helped a lot to go home and be spoiled by my parents for a while. :)
But as soon as the second trimester started, I was feeling great! Dallin and I did a lot of traveling, my appetite was back, and I felt so healthy! Almost invincible. In November, we had our second ultrasound, which was an anatomy scan, and we found out the sex of our baby. It's a girl! I always kind of thought it was going to be a girl, but I didn't really care either way. I would have been just as excited if it were boy. Especially after hanging out with my sweet little nephew, Jude. But after looking at little girl clothes in the stores, I am pretty excited to have my own little doll to dress. :)
Now I am into my third trimester, at 27 weeks. I can't believe how fast the time has passed! Our due date is April 4th and I am getting bigger and rounder by the day. It is so weird to be this big and not be able to squeeze by tight spaces anymore. And as I said before, I have got the pregnant lady waddle down pat.
I still feel pretty good and healthy. I love feeling the constant little baby kicks and watching my belly jolt and morph like there is a little alien inside of it. :) My only complaint are the back aches that I sometimes get from having to sleep on my side. I am normally a back sleeper, and sleeping on my side has been hard to get used to. I think I will invest in one of those body pillows.
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| I was thrown a lovely baby shower while I was in Danville over Christmas. |
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| Thank you everyone for your beautiful gifts and for your presence! It was such a lovely time. |
I still feel pretty unprepared though! I am unbelievably excited, but I feel like I still have so much to do! There is so much stuff we still need to buy. I just had a baby shower in Danville and got a ton of cute clothes, so I am pretty covered in that department; but I need to figure out what carseat, stroller, crib, toys, swings, etc. that I want to buy. I need to figure out where, in my tiny house, are we going to accommodate this little one, and all of her many accessories. I need to read all these baby books, so I'll actually know what I am doing when the Little Miss arrives. And I need to go to Lamaze and breastfeeding classes. And Dallin and I still need to agree on a name. OY! But it will get done. Right now, I know that I can't sweat the small stuff. I am just so thankful for my health, my loving and caring husband, and our precious little one that is dancing around inside of me.
My beautiful, talented sister took some maternity shots for me while Dal and I were in Danville for Christmas. She did a great job. See more of her work at:
