Look at that little smile!

I have had two doctor appointments in the last two days. Yesterday I had my ultrasound which is always amazing. It was the last ultrasound for this pregnancy, so the last chance to see James before he makes his way into the world in just over 3 months.
Everything looks great according to Nikki, the technician. James is in the 64th percentile as far as his growth goes, so that is a little above average. Hopefully that doesn't mean an 8 or 9 pound delivery weight!!! Hahahaha, though babies who are born bigger tend to sleep through the night a lot sooner which would definitely be a plus. At the moment, James is about 2.5 pounds ... so tiny!



James Thomas at 26.5 weeks. Can you believe that he smiled for the camera :)

Today's appointment was one of my routine monthly visits with Dr. Samawi. We do the same thing every visit: I pee in a cup, blood pressure, weight, temperature, baby's heart rate, uterus measurements and questions. Dr. Samawi said that everything is going really well and he couldn't be happier. He is an awesome doctor and I am excited to have him in the delivery room when the day arrives :)

So you remember when I was tested for anemia? It turns out that I am anemic and had to start taking iron pills twice a day. Anemia is very common among pregnant women, especially around the 27th week, which is right where I am. Here are some of the symptoms of anemia:

Easy fatigue and loss of energy  --- Yes!

Unusually rapid heart beat, particularly with exercise  --- Sometimes.

Shortness of breath and headache, particularly with exercise --- Sometimes.

Difficulty concentrating --- No more than usual, lol.

Dizziness --- Yes, but not too often.

Pale skin --- A few people mentioned that I was looking pale.

Leg cramps --- Especially at night time!

Insomnia --- Only in the past week or so.

So as you can see, I experienced most of the basic symptoms. The ones that bother me the most are the fatigue and the leg cramps and then more recently the insomnia.
With the fatigue there are days where I feel completely useless and just want to sleep. There are days when I might take multiple naps and go to bed early. My head barely hits the pillow and I am out like a light!
The leg cramps haven't been very bad, just more of an annoyance and discomfort when I am trying to relax at night. Some nights I toss and turn with a lot of frustration.
And with the insomnia, it is where I will wake up between 4am-5am and not be able to get back to sleep for quite some time.

So hopefully the iron intake will alleviate some of (if not all) these symptoms. The doctor also prescribed me something to hopefully ensure that constipation wont become an issue due to the added iron.

So that's me. No more doctors appointments this week. So it will be nice to have a break from the doctor's office. :)

It's a Boy!

Today we went to our ultrasound and it was awesome! The technician, Nicki, took all the measurements and said that everything looks great and also annoucned that we will be having a baby boy  :)  As soon as she said it, I looked at Josh and we both smiled. We cant wait! He will be James Thomas Epps.

We chose the name by putting both of our dad's first names together and I think it forms quite a solid name. It sounds strong :)

Nicki had pointed out James' penis to us but then decided to add some arrows and a title just incase we forgot what we were looking at. Josh gets a laugh everytime he sees this picture.  :)

I cannot wait to welcome baby James into the world in April  :)  He is our little boy and boy are we lucky that he is coming into our lives. Sometimes I still cannot believe that we created something so wonderful. I cannot wait to meet you my little Peanut ... but in the meantime, you stay where you are in the warmth and grow and thrive as you have been already. I love you xoxox



Can't Sleep.

I am 20 weeks today! It is 630am on the morning of the ultrasound where Josh and I will find out if our Peanut is a boy or a girl. My alarm was set to go off at 7am, but I have been up since 6am - awake since 5am.
I am just nervous about the ultrasound ... not a bad nervous, just anxious like I cant wait. I keep dreaming where it is past the ultrasound and I either cant remember the results or I forgot to go.

At work yesterday we took tallies of who thought it would be a girl and who a boy. It was split 50/50 again. Some people just guessed while others took a good look at me making an educated guess ... it still came out 50/50! So I guess there is really no way to tell without that ultrasound! So much for the old wives tales.

I guess I will be back later with the news :)

Busy Times!

There is so much going on right now! Firstly, my tummy has started growing quite a bit (which you will see evidence of on Tuesday). It has only started really growing  in the past few weeks. So I finally look pregnant and less like I ate too many Cheetos.

Can you believe that I will be 20 weeks pregnant on Tuesday! That's 5 months!!! I cannot believe how fast this is all going. I guess time has been flying more now that I have been feeling so much better physically etc. So I have been working more and getting more done as far as chores and errands go. I am also sleeping less during the day and eating more :)  Finally enjoying the perks of pregnancy.

So besides us hitting the 5 month mark on Tuesday, we also have our ultrasound appointment. This is the ultrasound where they tell us if we are carrying little girl Epps or little boy Epps. I cannot wait! As far as people guessing at work etc, it has been split 50/50, so only time will tell! After the appointment Josh and I will be calling the grandparents and aunts ... but after that, keep an eye out for that exciting announcement on facebook  :)

In two weeks, we are moving our little family to a bigger apartment. It's only 15 minutes from where we are now, but it's a nicer area (no college students), has an extra bedroom for our little Peanut, has a washer/dryer IN the apartment (no more lugging laundry around) and a gas stove (the electrical stoves suck!). All those pluses and it isnt that much more expensive. Our apartment is also at the very end of the complex ... so that means less traffic outside our windows aaaaaand a mountain view because it's a newly developing area  :) 
These apartments were only built in 2009, so they have all the latest safety features in the buildings and because they are solid concrete we will hear our neighbors a lot less (thank goodness for that!). Our upstairs neighbors here are nice, but oh my goodness, sometimes it sounds like a family of elephants are living above us ... and they arent even overweight! So I am very excited about the move and so is Josh. I think we will be alot happier there, and I can see our little growing family being a lot happier there. Especially since we wont be surrounded by drunken students, pot smoke and never ending techno music.

So all in all, everything is going great! Besides having to pack of course, but luckily we dont have too much stuff and we're not going very far. So I guess I will talk to you all again (on here) on Tuesday! Feel free to take some last minute guesses  ;)

First official pictures!

Yesterday morning Josh and I made our way to our first official ultrasound appointment. I know I got one at the ER, but they wouldn't let me watch and they use older monitors making the whole thing not as clear. The place we went yesterday morning had state of the art sonogram machines.

One thing that was really excited for me was that Josh had not yet seen the baby in motion or heard the heartbeat. He is so stoked about becoming a dad, that I knew it would be a special moment for him too. And it was awesome! At first the baby wouldn't lie still, so the technician was having trouble getting the measurements. But after a few minutes he/she found a comfortable spot so that we could all see exactly how he/she is doing.

The baby is beautiful. 'Little Peanut' is definitely an appropriate nickname. In fact, I thought the baby looked perfect, the most beautiful baby I've ever seen on sonogram :)  And the heartbeat was so strong. Josh and I were pretty quiet through out the screening as we just stared at the monitor. We were both very happy leaving that appointment.

Here is a picture of our little peanut at 12 weeks and 6 days  :)  During this appointment we also found out that the screening for Down Syndrome and other related diseases came back negative. So our little peanut is growing strong :)

I cannot wait for our next sonogram in 5 weeks, because then we will find out the gender. Aaah, I am still glowing. I can now see why expectant mothers glow ... it's watching the miracle progress, the miracle that will become your beautiful child.

There you are little Peanut.

Some days I find myself stopping to look in the mirror. I lift up my shirt and turn sideways for some physical proof that my little baby is growing inside me. So far it's really only been hip widening and bloating (I am only 12 weeks and 1 day), but today was the day.

I went to the doctors office this afternoon for my follow-up exam following Tuesday's car accident. I peed in a cup (again), the doctor checked my cervix (not my favorite exam) to make sure it was still completely closed and we did an ultrasound. We did do some ultrasounds in the ER on Tuesday, but I wasn't allowed to really watch at that time and they didnt explain anything that was on the screen. Today the screen was pointed straight at me.

There was my little peanut on the monitor, looking right at us. The doctor pointed out the little face and dark areas where the eye are. It was as if he/she was saying, "What?! Would you just let me rest already???"  ... or .... "Hi mom, I told you I would be fine." - I also got to see the little flicker that is the heartbeat. And then the doctor turned on the sound so I got hear the heartbeat and wow is it strong! The doctor even said, "That is a pretty perfect heartbeat." .... That's my little peanut  :)

It put my mind as ease. Just a few days ago the thoughts of losing my child was unbearable, but he/she is much stronger than I gave him/her credit for. The doctor did give me some print outs of my little peanut and I cannot wait to share them with you. But first, Josh must see his little baby. I really can't wait to show Josh tomorrow when he gets home. And I cannot wait until the Tuesday when Josh gets to hear the little heartbeat too.

I find myself rubbing my tummy and looking at my stomach in the mirror more now. I still can't believe that there is a little person in there ... one little person that can make me feel so much love. --- I just cant wait to meet you, my little peanut  :)

First little bump in the road (Part Two).

So when I got home after the accident my gut was telling me to go to the ER and just get checked out. Even if everything was perfectly fine, it would put my mind at ease, allowing me to relax and just recover from the accident myself. So off to the ER I went, crying almost the entire way there. Terrified of what the outcome could be.

The waiting room was thankfully pretty empty. So I checked in and was in the back for my vitals within 10 minutes. They spent 10 minutes doing blood pressure, heart rate and questions before taking me straight to my assigned bed in the ER. Almost right away a nurse came by to see me. She took the time to tell me what was going to happen, who was going to come see me and how long this was all going to take. She was awesome and very friendly, taking the time to tell me about her 5 month old baby girl and how her pregnancy was. She made me feel very comfortable.

The first doctor came in with a mini ultra sound machine just to have a quick look at the baby. As excited as I was to see the baby, I was really wishing that Josh was there so we could see the baby together. I was also nervous that she would find something wrong. But nope, there he or she was, moving his or her arms and legs, just hanging out. We could also see the flicker of the little heartbeat. But even though that all looked okay, they wanted to send me to radiology for a more in depth look just to be sure.

Nicole (the nurse from earlier) came back to draw some blood and put me on some IV fluids. She said they like to do that when they have a pregnant lady to make sure I don't get dehydrated with all the excitement. It was weird, I could taste it for the first few seconds, but after that it just made me really cold. I also had to pee like 10 times once the drip was finished.

Then thankfully, my friend Bekki came to keep me company. I was so happy to have someone there especially with Josh being out of town. It made time go faster and she kept my mind of off everything. Having her there even made the guy across the way throwing up not seem so bad. Thank you again Bekki!

They then took me downstairs for the in-depth ultrasound. I wasn't allowed to see the screen or hear the heartbeat (which is good, cause I want Josh there for that) because they only do ultra sounds for trauma patients. She took a ton of pictures, but then couldn't help herself by showing me one of them. She said, "Do you want to see something really cute?"  ... ummmm duh! When she turned the screen, it was my baby holding/rubbing his or her nose with his or her little hand. I loved it, because I used to do that as a baby  :)  It made me smile. Taking after his or her mommy already!

After waiting in my ER bed for another hour, the doctor came by to tell me what they had found. Everything looked okay except for the little spot of blood around where the placenta is attached to the uterus. While this is normal for some women, they found it on me after trauma and so they didn't want to assume it was there before. So they put me on bed rest for at least 3 days or until my regular ob-gym clears me.

It was quite a day and things could most definitely have been a lot worse. I am very thankful for whomever was looking over me and my little unborn baby during the accident and in the following hours. We are both very lucky. 5 hours in the ER was well worth it. Now I am just resting and healing with the help Bekki and Kyle who live right across the street. I look forward to telling our child about our first little adventure together.  :)