Surprise! Baby Rowland, coming June 25, 2014.
This has been such a hard secret to keep, but I wanted to wait until we got the 12 week all clear from my doctor before making anything "public". Lance and I found out on October 13, 2013 (exactly 2 weeks before our one year anniversary!) that we were expecting our little one. I only told 2 close girlfriends and that was it for weeks and weeks. I knew I wanted to wait until that first doctor's appointment until we told our families because I knew their excitement was going to be through the roof. I would hate to share this amazing news too soon since anything can happen, especially in the beginning weeks, and I wanted to feel a little more secure in our announcement. We saw our little one and heard the heartbeat on November 11, and it was so surreal. I think the ultrasound tech was waiting for us to say something, but we literally both just starred silently in amazement at the screen!
I knew I wanted to have "fun" announcements for our families, so I had to wait until special days to work out my plan. My dad's birthday was November 22, so we used this to announce to my family. They are HUGE (and I mean huge) Minnesota Vikings fans, so I wanted to use that in some way with my dad's gift. As I was searching baby Vikings apparel online, I came across this perfect little gift.
I was curious if they would understand what it meant, but Lance said it was pretty obvious. Well, apparently it wasn't! haha Since my family is in MS and there was no time coming up we would see them in person, we had to do their announcement over Skype. I did record this, but since we were recording the computer screen, it didn't turn out the best quality. So here we are, all anxious as my dad opens the gift. He opens it, reads it and kind of laughs and says, oh cool. ((Sigh)) So I say, no READ it again. He reads it again out loud- Nothing registering for him. Then I ask, DO YOU GET IT???? At this point my mom's head pops over in front of the camera and says, Um I do??? and when she realized she was correct, the screaming began and then my dad FINALLY got it! haha To say my mom was excited doesn't even cut it. She was crying, screaming, etc. It was too funny and such a great moment.
Next, we had to think of a plan for Lance's family. We were going to VA for Thanksgiving, so I made him wait until then to share with his mom. I was dying to tell SOMEONE in person!!!! For her, we just wrapped a framed picture of the ultrasound and told her we got a little something for hosting Thanksgiving. Her reaction is priceless and I am so glad we got this on video! For some reason I can NOT get the video on my blog. I have emailed it to myself, well my computer won't open it; I tried backing up my google+ from my phone with all my videos and images, nope; tried uploading it to youtube from my phone, nope. I'm not sure what is going on! :( So sadly I can not share this gem just yet.
Needless to say, EVERYONE in our family is so excited and over the moon. On one hand I was so ready to just tell everyone else and not be "hiding" anymore, but then again it was nice to have our little secret. It's crazy now to think so many people know our news!!
When you announce you are pregnant everyone immediately asks how you are feeling. Let me just tell you, pregnancy has not agreed with me, AT ALL. From about week 4 until around 11 1/2 weeks, I was deadly miserable ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT. I only threw up once, but the nausea was the most horrible thing I have ever dealt with. I would suffer through work (which was so hard since no one knew I was pregnant) then cry most of the hour drive home, force myself to eat dinner, and be asleep by 7:30-8 every night. Poor Lance basically did everything house wise because I was completely useless. I'm not sure how he managed all my crying and misery, but we made it! I am slowly feeling semi-human again and it is such a relief!! I still feel run down, tired, dizzy, and all those fun symptoms most of the time, but I can handle that 100% versus what I went through these past few weeks. When I would hear all these people say how they had no symptoms and loved being pregnant, I am not going to lie, I was so angry and jealous of those mean little lucky women! ha. It's so nice to finally enjoy things a bit more. I still get nauseous every now and then, especially if I am not eating constantly, but that's manageable! If you noticed I haven't been around much on Facebook, Instagram, or my blog.. it's because I literally had nothing to write or post about but sleeping and crying. haha But here I am now, ready to share my journey!
I follow 2 blogs where the girls are pregnant and do weekly "Bumpdates", which I think are so cute! I will start posting these every Wednesday, and will normally add a pic, but since I don't have any bump just yet, I didn't take one this week. Back around Thanksgiving I had some major bloat going on and was getting a little nervous I was going to be huge, but that has since gone down. I am sure it'll start poking out soon though! :) So far I am still wearing all my normal clothes, I can just notice pants feel snugger around the button and hip area. All the maternity clothes look so cute and comfy, so I am definitely ready for that stage and all the fun shopping!
Here we go:
Week 12 Bumpdate
How far along: 12 weeks
Size of baby: a Peach
Gender: Will hopefully find out in 6 weeks!
Maternity clothes: Not yet
Sleep: I sleep A LOT, but have recently started having some crazy dreams! They are so random and involve such a wide variety of people that have no connection. Some mornings I wake up so exhausted from all my dreaming.
Symptoms: Thanks goodness the nausea is going away, but I am still tired a lot, run down, light headed, and bad lower back pain when moving certain ways. Things are getting better though!
Miss anything: Not really. Maybe just not having to be cautious with what things I can/can't eat.
Movement: Nothing yet, but I hope soon since the doctor said yesterday I have a super active, bouncy baby!
Food cravings: I've eaten a tomato sandwich (maybe 2 some days..) every day for about a week. SO good! Then I think about french fries 24/7 but have been trying to only give in randomly.
Anything making you queasy or sick: The days I don't feel too good, if I look at food I start super dry heaving. (no fun)
Have you started to show yet: Just some bloat at night. Mainly I just look like I had a BIG meal.
Belly button in or out: In
Wedding rings on or off: On
Mood: Happy/Excited
Best moment of this week: Hearing our little one's super fast heart rate yesterday and knowing everything is still going right in there.
Looking forward to: Finally getting to share the secret with everyone and I am already so ready to find out the gender!!!
Congrats!! I just had my son last June 27th and my due date was June 23rd! I had the WORST nausea from weeks 6-15, but I didn't even start being able to eat good food and feel normal again until almost 20 weeks. It was so awful. I was just like you- miserable 24/7 and I had to hide it for so long. I'm so happy to hear that you're feeling better. The good thing about nausea is that it usually means you have a strong healthy pregnancy!
ReplyDeleteOh and I gave into pretty much everyone of my pregnancy cravings.
Thanks! It was a rough period, for sure! It still comes in waves, but it is SO SO much better than it was. I honestly didn't know how much longer I could take it. And then I would hear stories of people who were that sick the whole 9 months and would almost have a nervous break down at the thought! haha Thank goodness it's getting better and that yours eased up too!!!
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