Week 22

So, I am actually 23 weeks, 4 days, but I still have not posted week 22 pictures- behind already!

So to catch you up, we have picked a name- Jaxon James Scott.  James after primarily my dad and grandpa, but a bunch of family will share this name.  There wasn't really an obvious family name so this middle name was kinda tough.  We realized that no matter what we do this kid is doomed to have three first names.  I can't tell you how often we get mail for Chess addressed to Scott Chess or Allen Chess Scott or Scott Allen.... we just can't save him from this lifelong battle.

The nursery is coming together with all the furniture bought and in place.  Bedding purchased and on, but not yet laundered.  Huge thanks to everyone who helped with this part, you know who you are.  Also a big thanks to my sister-in-law for patiently walking me through registering at Babies R Us.  I truly realized how clueless I am as I didn't even know what some of this stuff is, and would have certainly never thought to register for it.  I think we may have to buy a second house just to house all the stuff that a little bitty baby needs!  It truly is crazy.

As the realization hits on just how close we are getting to D Day (delivery day), I find myself getting more and more anxious.  I have no idea what I am doing!  I have never held a baby, never changed a diaper.  I take that back, I have changed one clean diaper after giving my 3ish year old niece a bath and I swear to you, she helped me.

Wish us luck, we will need it.

Half way to Bday!

Can you believe it?  Today is half way day.  20 weeks down, 20 weeks to go.  I haven't been great about taking weekly pictures- so I have settled for committing myself to bi-weekly belly pictures.  To catch you up here is week 17 and 19.

Oh, by the way- its a BOY!  We were kinda hoping for a girl (as a parent-to-be am I allowed to admit that???).  But at our 17 week ultrasound the tech confirmed that "bean" is indeed a boy.  Now, that we know it is a boy we have decided that maybe a boy is easier?  My husband makes a valid point when he says that he thinks you never stop worrying about a girl, but that a boy can grow up to take care of himself.  I guess we will find out if that is true.

My mom and mother-in-law are busy with initial plans for a baby shower and we are working to get the room put together as well as finish the 2 million home improvement projects that we have started since we bought this home almost a year ago.  It is funny how all of the sudden I feel the urgent need to complete the projects I have happily left half finished for years....

Now we just need to come up with a name.  Any suggestions?

15 weeks

So, I am still trying to catch you up on our journey this far.  BTW we are due December 1st (not sure if I already told you that).  As of a few weeks ago, we are "in the safe zone" which I have come to understand means anything after 12 weeks.  I knew nothing about pregnancy and am learning something new everyday.  I knew about morning sickness but had never heard of some of the other symptoms (only a few of which I care to mention to the world).  Let me stop right here and say- I have been REALLY LUCKY.  I haven't been sick once and overall I have felt pretty good.  The first trimester I was pretty tired, but as long as I ate regularly I felt fine.  I had no idea that at this early stage in the game I would already be waking up all night to use the restroom and if anyone had told me about "pregnancy amnesia" six months ago I would have said they were crazy.  Believe me, not only is it a real thing, it is alive and well.

Now to the exciting news- we get to find out the sex on Monday!  Just four short days away and we will know if our little bean is a boy or a girl!  We have invited my parents down to join us and see first hand if their one and only grandchild needs pink or blue accessories.  We found out a few weeks ago that we had the option of doing an additional ultrasound at 16 weeks to determine the sex.  Chess wasn't really for it since we have another ultrasound at 20 weeks and could just wait and find out the sex then.  But I have heard several people tell me since I have been pregnant that their ultrasounds were wrong.  The way I look at it, is you spend a lot of money on "stuff" that is gender specific, so I would rather have two looks to be sure :)

So here is a picture of my belly at 15 weeks.  I feel like I am already huge and can barely fit in most of my clothes and can't fit into any of my jeans at all...  I know I still have a long ways to go but at this point I just can't wrap my mind around being any bigger!

Surprise! We are going to be parents!

I would say no one was more surprised than us to learn we were expecting, but that may not be entirely true. You have to remember we have been telling them all for years that we had no plans of procreating- and we didn't. So to say the news was unexpected is the understatement of the century. We decided to wait until after our first doctors appointment at eight weeks to tell our family. It was my moms birthday so we used that as a reason to gather our family and tell them the news. We had a special card made for her that said "What do you get a mother that has everything? A picture of her new grand baby!" And we taped a picture of the ultrasound picture inside. She read it out loud in front of everyone and after a pause she asked me in disbelief if I was pregnant. I said yes, and then everyone cried and/or sobbed hysterically. Chess was secretly video taping with his phone and the video abruptly ends when he is tackled by his brother. Priceless.

The beginning of the story

Most of you reading this are likely close friends or family (my writing isn't exactly clever so I can't imagine many strangers caring to read). So I won't waste too much space with the beginning. What you mainly need to know about us is that we weren't planning on having children and we were pretty vocal about it. It isn't that we don't like kids, we have a niece & nephew we love. We just like to be around kids in short bursts and preferably not early in the morning, when they are crying, or on airplanes. So imagine our surprise when "the stick" was positive. So my husband would be disappointed if I didn't tell you he had psychically predicted this. He was on a flight to Australia and says he just KNEW I was preggo. We met up the next week in NY for our god daughters birthday and baptism and he kept asking me how I was feeling and I couldn't understand why. When we got home he started kidding me about being pregnant. This went on for several days and he had me so stressed out I relented and went and bought a pregnancy test to prove him wrong. Boy was I wrong. After 4 positive tests, I finally concluded that he may be right. We are having a baby. And we are scared to death!