the rest of my trip.

today is my last day in truckee,

my mom and i are going to spend the night in reno tonight (i think)

since my flight leaves at 6 am and there is a winter storm warning for tonight.

here are the rest of the photos from my two weeks here.

it was a good holiday and i'm sad that it wont come again for another year.

xo

14 weeks

{late again}

14 weeks:

my last birthday and christmas without having a baby around,

i'm now the age i will be when i deliver my first child.

this week, i have been especially crampy,

and i can see myself growing a lot,

and looking more terrible.

yaaay.

you got a lot of presents for christmas already baby,

kind of insane.

and i bought you the sweetest, softest little lovey blanket.

we got your back.

xo

adult birthdays

oh the food fest that is adult birthdays...

on christmas eve i turned 22!

here are the photos commemorating every time we ate ;)

we had breakfast at this little place called squeeze inn,

i don't think we ate lunch,

then ryan and i watched movies in bed,

and went to dinner in an old ski lodge turned restaurant called cottonwood,

then had carrot cake.

good thing i'm pregnant :)

oh hey.

it's my birthday.

snow dazeee

i spent 16 winters growing up with this much snow...

and did we ever get snow days??

NO!!

{nashville, you are a disgrace and an embarrassment for closing schools weeks at a time for a forecast of snow flurries}

your thoughts on child birth...

I definitely have some ideas for how i want to give birth,

but before i go posting them all over here,

i would love to hear your thoughts.

if you're a mother: what you did, if you would do anything different.

or if you have an idea for 20 years down the line when you have a child.

thanks!

13 weeks.

so i am like waaay late on this.

i actually change "weeks" every friday, but i give myself a few days to get these photos and posts done.

and i just completely forgot about it yesterday.

oh and my last ultrasound said i was measuring a few days bigger than my dates...

so maybe everything will change and get mixed up.

but for now i am considering myself 13 weeks (and 3 days).

13 weeks:

this week has been interesting baby,

i am still getting over what happened last weekend so i haven't been in the best of moods,

or very optimistic,

but i am getting over it.

it took me almost 8 hours of travel to get to california and i must say,

traveling pregnant is absolutely miserable.

but having time to sleep in and read and watch the snow fall has been much needed and well worth the trip.

according to sources you are now the size of a peach, approximately 3 inches long and weighing 1/2 of an ounce.

that seems so huge to me and yet i wont feel you move around for a while.

i can't wait for next christmas, when you will be here with us to celebrate.

xo

{i know i said i would take cuter photos but this week doesn't count...maybe next week}

vacation shmacation {photo heavy}

ok so since my last post *some* things have gotten better.

my mom and i spent the entire day running errands, picking up a christmas tree, and cleaning the house.

and we are exhausted.

my sister ducked out and hung out with a friend all day.

but we went through a lot of old stuff and got boxes ready for goodwill and cleaned every nook and cranny.

so i'm feeling a bit better now.

it's been snowing since i got into town but yesterday, we had a pretty big storm.

and of course we were out ALL day, and then my old high school friends - Mac and Danny,

picked me up and we went to dinner at our high school yearbook teacher's house

{she doubles as a really close friend of mine}.

this morning i woke up to rain,

which wiped all the snow off the trees and left a yucky wet snow all over.

which most ended up in my boots.

tomorrow we have a huge winter storm warning -

it was suggested that people stock up on food and flashlights as we might be snowed in,

and i heard a rumor that by christmas day we should have accumulated TEN FEET of fresh snow.

it's seriously insane!

here are some photos from yesterday.

we ate lunch at this diner called "jax on the tracks"

overpriced but good.

they looked like they had amazing milk shakes but i was freezing the whole time so it was not an option.

before i went to dinner,

i stopped by my mom's church to see her in a live nativity scene thing,

and this is what i found.

{so cute}

ryan doesn't come in until wednesday and i cannot wait.

i'm picking him up at the train station {right behind that diner}

and it will be snowing and lovely and romantic.

oh and did i mention christmas is in a week,

and my birthday is in 6 days.

check tomorrow for a 13 week maternity update.

adios!

a quick thought or two

sorry for my absence these past few days,

i was busy packing and packing and now i'm at my mom's house in truckee, ca.

there is SO much snow.

and tomorrow {and saturday} is supposed to produce SIX feet of snow,

you hear that nashville - SIX FEET. and everything still stays open.

anyway,

i've been in a weird state since saturday,

thinking every cramp means something bad is happening

and i'm no longer a happy pregnant but a worried one.

also,

had a huge stress meltdown last night.

my mom's house is a disaster and smells of pee

{sorry mom, but it does}

and clutter everywhere,

and i really can't handle it.

i ate dinner alone in my room last night.

not sure how i will make it for two weeks.

or if the baby will with all the anxiety it's causing me.

xo

12 weeks.

we just snapped these photos really quickly before ryan had to leave to play at church tonight,

i'm staying home because the midwife told me to just take it easy today

{did i mention there was some bleeding today too??}

i'm going to call the clinic in the morning and ask for an additional exam and ultrasound before i leave on wednesday for two weeks to just make sure that everything is still ok, mostly because of this morning.

after looking at these photos, i've decided to put more into them to get them a little cuter ;)

week 12,

what an interesting week it has been baby,

first,

we heard your sweet heartbeat.

the midwives let us come in to try and we were able to hear it.

at that moment, we finally realized that this is real.

my morning sickness has come back with a vengeance, but isn't as consistent.

which is oh-so-fun,

and then of course at the end of the week,

i had a scare that i was losing you.

after many hours of sitting and waiting,

being poked and examined,

i got to see you for the very first time.

sadly, your daddy was on the first plane home to come be with me so he wasn't there,

but to my great relief you seemed to be a-okay,

and watching your little heart beat at 154 beats per minute put my own at ease.

i also saw something interesting hanging between your legs...

but the tech said "it's just fun to play, it could go away, but it's interesting"

we can't stop looking at your pictures and i can't wait to show you in real time to your daddy.

xo

close call.

today, the scariest thing that can happen to a pregnant woman happened.

i woke up at 6 because owen was barking and decided to pee,

to my horror, i saw that i had blood in my underwear...

not just a little and not too much.

ryan was on the other side of the country and wouldn't be home until late tonight but i called him anyway.

i was hysterical.

got a hold of the midwife on call that basically said i was either miscarrying or having implantation bleeding because the placenta had attached to the uterus.

she told me to come to the ER right away.

luckily, my friend ashley had spent the night, so i had someone with me.

i got there and stayed there from 7 am until noon.

did all sorts of tests and had my first ultrasound.

{which was so sad that ryan couldn't be there, but he had changed his flight and was flying home when i went in for it.}

seeing my baby for the first time was insane,

and thankfully its heart was beating and it was wiggling like crazy.

{which was so weird because i would see it move all around and i can't feel it, just knowing it was inside of me}

they let ashley take a few photos and video to send to ryan,

and i got my hands on some of the "technical" ultrasound photos, measuring the baby and such.

i am seriously so thankful that everything is ok,

it turned out that i had bled because of the placenta attaching and that is completely normal,

but i am so drained from everything i felt this morning.

towards the end of the video, the baby will move its arms and head and its so weird, you hear me squeal.

sex dreams {gender}

{me as a little one, butt naked, thinking i was the little mermaid}

we wont be able to find out the sex of our baby until early february,

and i'm hesitant to put my money on whether it's a boy or a girl,

but i have now had three separate dreams of me having a daughter.

and she looks exactly the same in each one.

wishful thinking? or a sign?

xo

kickdrum heart.

this is the size of my baby.

we heard the heartbeat for the first time tonight and it was incredible.

they had no problem with having us stop in to try,

and at 11 weeks if we couldn't hear it they would send us to get an ultrasound.

this morning i had gotten an adjustment at my chiropractor and when i was laying on my stomach - he was working on my lower back - i felt a tightness on the right lower side of the pelvis.

so tonight they started on the left side and in my head i knew the baby was on the right.

the midwife started looking nervous and then she heard it for like two seconds {on the right} and said it was a weird angle so worked for it and then we heard it loud and clear.

i can't even describe the love it put in my heart.

it's now real to me that there is a little baby in there.

here's to a non allergy Owen.

i'm not sure if i have ever mentioned it on here before, but this guy {above} has some majorrr allergies.

they started about two years ago or so and every time we have taken him to the vet they just tell us to give him benedryl.

basically, he chews and licks his feet - and since he is a lab he has webbed feet. if you push his toes apart you would see that it's almost raw and his fur is stained red, so naturally i have always been concerned about infection. he also gets frequent ear infections, rubs his face and back on the ground because it itches and sheds like none other.

after a lot of research we decided to switch his normal dog food to Blue Buffalo.

it's really expensive but i read about 200 reviews online about people who had the same problem with allergies with their dogs and switched to this and had them completely clear up - even shedding went to basically nothing.

i have been pretty sure that owen was allergic to his food for a while but now {which is such a sad thought and makes me feel like a horrible pet owner} but i think it's a soy and gluten allergy.

Blue Buffalo has a couple variations but I decided to go with the wilderness one since it has absolutely no grains in it at all. I bought him the salmon flavor and just gave him a little and he devoured it in like a second.

so hopefully this will help.

and i would already recommend it to anyone with a dog.

there is no meat byproduct in it and everything has a purpose.

{owen's has blueberries and sweet potatoes too}

11 weeks.

last week i had told you guys that i would be starting a maternity series,

i plan to take a photo or 5 each week and write to the baby about what went on.

at the end of it all i will take them and transfer them to a little book to keep forever.

{i also plan to document the first year of the baby's life - not on the blog though- in another book as well}

i just miss photo albums haha.

here we goooo...

11 weeks

this week things are much better.

i'm not as tired and my nausea has completely subsided.

my appetite is almost all the way back and i'm eating like a normal person, finally.

we told everyone about you last week and i almost immediately regretted it.

i definitely miss the secret, but it was a hard one to keep with my tiny baby bump.

i don't feel as moody as before and i'm not always on edge with tears.

ryan says i'm "nesting" because i'm baking a lot, but i don't think that's how it works ;)

i'm going to call the midwives tomorrow morning to see if i can sneak in this week to hear your heartbeat since at 9 weeks you hid it.

i'm dreading that they will say "no" for some reason and in my head planning other strategies.

these next 6 1/2 months can't go by fast enough.

and for all the friends that say "you don't have a little bump, you look like a normal person"

this is what my normal person stomach looks like.

and i'm pregnant in the first photo...like 6 week.

told ya so.

xo