They grow up so fast

So, I finally got around to buying a 2013 calendar for our kitchen and sat down to fill in birthdays and other important events using last year's calendar. In doing this I realized that we missed a very important birthday...our pup's! Maisy turned 3 on her made-up birthday of January 16th. It is the day we brought her home two years ago and since they told us she was "around a year old," I decided we'd celebrate her adoption day as her dog-birthday! These past two years have been an adventure and a challenge for sure, but we love our anxious little girl and are looking forward to seeing what kind of big fur-sister she'll make!  

 As I write this Maisy is sitting at my feet, tail-a-wagging, hoping that I'm going to give her a sweet tart. Not happening!

Making the trip to NY (again & again).

Our cuddle bug

Dog on prozac

 

Belly progress

I am a little nervous to post these photos. I love watching my belly grow and finally getting to see some evidence of the baby growing in there. However, I don't think I quite have a "bump" yet. I'd call it something more like cushioning for the baby ;) And I know that, to the moms of the world, this tiny bump is nothing compared to what is coming! The midwife has let us hear baby's heartbeat and the ultrasounds have let us even see the little baby, but until my body starts to prove it to me, it is hard to really grasp the concept that I am pregnant and having a baby in less than six months. So, Jason has been documenting my belly with photos starting at week 10.

 

10 Weeks 

I thought we were starting to photograph too early in the pregnancy, but I just finished my 16th week and uploaded what we have taken. Jason was right and it is actually kind of cool to see the progression. 

So here you go:

 

11 Weeks

 

12 Weeks

 

13 Weeks

 

14 Weeks

 

16 Weeks (we forgot to take one last week @ week 15)

Also, I am wearing a wrap because every week I take this photo in leggings and a tank top and darn it, it's January and I'm freezing cold.

[On a side note, I apparently change my hair a lot. It looks completely different in every photo!]

Poppin'

The bump is here! It is strange and exciting all at once. I am mesmerized by this evidence of our baby and probably ask Jason to look at it/feel it/be amazed by it far more often than is necessary. We are taking weekly bump-watch photos, but they are not nearly as fun as this photo of the emerging bump in my mom's 1970's sky blue snow overalls. Enjoy!

A real live baby!

We had another ultrasound on December 31st and wow, has our baby grown. It actually looks like a baby. Aside from feeling sick for the past 3 months and getting a little rounder, I sometimes wondered if anything was really going on in there. This really cleared things up for me. Our baby was opening and closing its mouth, stretching and rolling all over the place (not that you can tell from these photos where s/he was being oh-so-cooperative for the tech). What a way to wrap up our year. Usually on New Year's Eve I feel a little bit of sad nostalgia for the year that is over, but this year was different. We were both so happy to watch the clock strike midnight. 2013 is going to be a pretty great one.

The baby had his/her legs crossed, hence the funny looking stubs at the bottom of the body.

Can't you just tell how cute our baby is already? The cutest.

Butterfly

On November 20th, J and I went for our first ultrasound. I was only 7 weeks along, but the midwives wanted to be sure everything was going okay so they sent us to see the baby's heartbeat. We were both excited and nervous about this appointment. What if the technician couldn't find the heartbeat? What if there was no heartbeat? We tried our hardest not to spiral with worry and stay optimistic. That afternoon at work, I was so anxious/nauseous/excited and was so relieved when it was finally time for me to head to our appointment. J met me there and I was immediately glad I had changed our appointment so he could be with me. The technician warned us that the heartbeat might be hard to find this early in a pregnancy- we knew. So, we were both pretty surprised when she found our baby almost immediately and it's tiny heartbeat appeared on the monitor. The baby looked more like a blob, but it's heartbeat was unmistakable and reminded me of a tiny butterfly flapping it's wings. That butterfly was our baby and we were in love.