good morning! i am home sick today with an icky cold that i have been fighting. so i thought what better time to update the blog than today. tomorrow we start week 15 and i think i’m starting to feel the baby a little bit… i think… while i don’t feel the “flutters” that people have mentioned to me yet, i can distinguish where the baby is pretty well. sometimes i feel the baby more on one side than the other, and while i’ve been sick and coughing a lot, i can’t tell exactly if i feel my muscles contracting as i cough or the baby give me a little kick. my guess is that as these next couple of weeks pass, the baby will definitely be making its presence known.

i’ve begun looking up old wives tales on the internet that may give me an idea as to whether or not the baby is a boy or a girl. during a few weeks in the first trimester i felt like it was a boy… i was more drawn to the “boy things” in stores and just felt like this baby was a boy. now i am totally lost and don’t feel drawn towards either. we find out the sex on the monday after thanksgiving and i’m starting to get anxious about that dr. apt. they run a lot of tests, since this is my meeting with the high-risk doctor (my doctor sends all first time moms to the high risk doctor to check everything out). i feel really good these days and paul and i pray constantly for a healthy and happy baby… but i’m guessing these tests will confirm that, and that leaves me a little nervous because of the looming “what if?!?” anyway, we’re interested to hear what everyone else thinks the baby’s sex is. so drop me a comment or an email and cast your vote! some of my teacher-friends (who have kids of their own) have heard that the only meat i’m eating is chicken and they say “oh, definitely a girl… picky eater” but i don’t know how much of that stuff if actually true. these old wives tales were interesting though… wanting to know if my feet are colder now that i’m pregnant than they were pre-pregnancy, do i eat more salt or sweets (umm both!), does the thought of drinking orange juice sound good to me or gross me out… things like that. it’s hard to imagine that paul and i will know in just a matter of weeks.

anyway, here’s a pic of the baby at week 15 and some info about what we have coming up this week in the life of baby white. enjoy!!!

At around 4 inches long, crown to rump, your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 ounces. He’s busy inhaling and exhaling amniotic fluid, which will help develop the air sacs in his lungs. His legs are growing longer than his arms now, and he can move all his joints and limbs. That means his hands are more functional, too. Sweat glands are appearing, and although his eyelids are fused shut, he can sense light. If you shine a flashlight at your tummy, he’s likely to move away from the beam. There’s not much for your baby to taste at this point, but his taste buds are beginning to form. And if you have an ultrasound, you may be able to find out whether your baby’s a boy or girl! (Don’t be disappointed if it remains a mystery, though. Nailing down the sex depends somewhat on how clear the picture is and the position of your baby during the ultrasound; he may be curled or turned in such a way as to keep you in suspense.)

ok, now that i know what exactly a “baby moon” is… paul and i are proud to say that we were literally mooned by our baby on the day that we left for our baby moon, tuesday afternoon. so tuesday was our appointment to go and hear the heartbeat. little did we know that our wee-one was feeling stubborn on tuesday. we didn’t get to hear the heartbeat b/c the baby was comfy and cozy on my right side and chose to hide underneath one of my major arteries that runs down into my right leg. so each time our doctor would put the doppler over near the baby, all we heard was my heart beat which was overwhelmingly loud and would not allow us to hear the baby’s. so our sweet doctor looks at paul and says “stubborn… must be a girl… not worries, we will do an ultrasound so you can atleast see the baby.” we do the ultrasound externally and everything is going well, and we see everything fine, but the baby is hiding behind the placenta. so we see this enormous placenta and this little arm and hand behind the placenta WAVING AT US!!!! seriously it was as if the baby was saying “hahaha, you can’t find me.” so we’re cracking up and thinking “ok, what the heck” so the doctor starts to get mad and says “oh no no baby, we’re goina find you…” and she does an internal ultrasound. the baby pops up automatically, but it’s turned and laying down so that it’s facing away from us. we see the spine and the legs and arms and all and the baby starts to move we see it’s little tush just mooning us like there’s no tomorrow. we got a great ultrasound picture of it, and paul’s going to try and scan it in so i can post it, but his scanner is on the blink so it may take a few days. anyway, it looks like we have a little pistol on our hands.

our trip was great…. very relaxing. we were ready to get home though. when it comes to paul and i, there are so many days that you can sit by the pool. but it was a beautiful resort (pictures should be posted with this) and we had a lovely time.

so i’m smack in week 14 right now and really enjoying it!!! i get these sweet smiles from people who look at me and think “awww, she’s preggers” and not “hmm, is she fat or pregnant” which is nice. i’m starting to enjoy rocking out my little bump. i get to see the specialist the monday after thanksgiving, and paul and i think we may want to find out the gender of the baby. at first we were resigned to keeping it a surprise since he leaves again soon, but he will actually be home for the BIG appointment, so we think we’re going to find out. hard to imagine that knowing that information is just weeks away…. it seems like things are so great right now…. we also got word this weekend that one of our favorite couples and dear friends are preggers…. and another wonderful friend is engaged!!!!! GOD IS GOOD!!!

hooray!!! the first trimester is over and i am soooooooo glad. it’s like this over-night change from exhaustion to the point of wanting to lay down every 20 minutes to actually having some energy. woohoo!!! the nausea is gone… i don’t have to eat first thing in the morning… and it’s great!!!! paul and i have a doctor’s appointment on tuesday (our anniversary) so that should be cool. then we are off to naples for a few days to rest and relax at a lovely resort we found. we start week 13 on tuesday and i’ll post more info when i hear from the doctor. as of now, our wee-one is the size of a large lime. (i love how every single comparison relates to fruit). oh, in other news, i am wanting milk all the time. i never grew up drinking milk like paul did, but now all i want is a big glass of milk. paul thinks it’s because the baby needs milk. i just think it’s funny. i literally came home from school the other afternoon, went to the fridge and drank milk right out of the carton. who would’ve thought?

my students are totally nutty and excited with knowing that i am pregnant. the 8th grade took a trip to the local catholic highschools this week. i guess there were different tables set up at each school, b/c the kids came back with gifts for me from the anti-abortion table. one of the gifts was a pin that has footprints of a 10 week old baby (where i was last week) and the other gift was a plastic model of what a 10 week old baby looks like. i took the pin home and showed it to paul, but as far as the model was concerned, i was kinda creeped out by it. i passed it off to our religion teacher (who has a pregnant daughter-in-law) and told her it weirded me out. as of now though the baby is about 3 inches tall. it’s head is roughly half of the entire baby right now as the rest of the fetus is still developing. pretty neato though! i do like the pin and i think i’ll sport that on my denim jacket.

in other work-related news, paul and i have decided that i will be leaving work at the holidays. YAY!!!!!! i just told my principal about it yesterday and she was totally supportive. i will transition out at the christmas holiday since that is the end of the semester and when the kids come back in january, they can start fresh with someone new. that way i have months to prepare for the wee-one without the stress of teaching too. i really don’t know how i would handle both. these days, i’m so worn out by the time i get home from work that i just collapse on the couch until paul and i have dinner, and then i’m in bed between 8 and 8:30. it’s pretty pathetic. our weekends are pretty lazy too so that we can get caught up on rest. needless to say, there hasn’t been much baby prep time. i’m really excited about that though and really thankful for all the support that work has given me. (I CAN’T WAIT TO BE DONE WITH MY JOB!!!)

that’s all for now…. my 6th graders are walking in the door. bye!