Oh the Joys of Raising Boys... and a Girl: Our Big Surprise....

On February 9th 2012 I found out that we would be having our 3rd child! I was so excited. I took the test at 6:30am and didn't want to tell Brad quite yet. It was right before Valentine's day so I thought it would be fun to wait until then to tell him. I don't know what I was thinking though because I can't keep big secrets like that for very long.

Brad got home late that evening and I was already in bed reading. I couldn't stand it.. I had to tell him. So I said I have a surprise for you. We are going to have a baby! He was completely shocked and also very excited. Everything was going great the first few weeks. No morning sickness and feeling great and then it all changed. The nausea set in and with major force! It literally knocked me down.. I spent an entire weekend on the couch and did not one thing except take a shower because it took everything out of me. I wasn't throwing up, I just felt like I was going to all day long and it never let up. I even woke up late at night nauseous. I was bloated, constipated,dealing with insomnia (never had that before in pregnancy), I hated food but needed to eat it, had aversions to most everything. If something sounded like I could get it down I immediately got it to eat. The taste in my mouth after eating anything made my nausea worse and brushing my teeth didn't help. I have had a few random cravings... cereal (crispix and cinnamon toast crunch), Pineapple,and fruit, and at 11 weeks Imitation crab meat. We had decided that if we could we would wait until Easter to tell our families. This was going to be really hard for me. Like I said I don't keep secrets well, but I was determined to do it.

I was a bit worried that I would not be able to keep it a secret especially from my mom as she knows me very well. I was so sick, I was avoiding our families, had Brad always go drop off the kids and pick them up and I wasn't calling my mom much. I also was afraid that I was going to start showing really early. I had been doing weight watchers and had lost 10 lbs when I found out I was pregnant. My mom would ask me about it and how I was doing etc. I keep making things up about it. I even had to make up a lie to get my mom to watch the kids so I could go to my first doctors appointment. As time went on I realized it was not possible for me to keep things quiet the whole time and we were going to have to tell sooner. Not to mention my belly was starting to really poke out. So we decided since our families would all be together for Caleb's birthday we would share the news then. Here is how we told them. First everyone got a big egg.

Everyone was told they could not open it until I said they could. Upon opening it here is what they saw.

Here is a close up of the picture inside (that is not really this baby's ultrasound it is actually Benjamin's)

Everyone was really excited and there was a lot of commotion and excitement all around. The boys found out as well that there was going to be a baby and they were very excited. I was 9 weeks when we told everyone. My mom had for sure started to wonder if there was something going on. She almost asked me a few times if I was pregnant. It was such a huge relief to tell everyone. It was another 2 weeks before we had a doctors appointment and I couldn't wait to finally get there and have an ultrasound done. I was getting worried that we might be pregnant with twins since I was so sick and because I felt so big so early. At our first ultrasound we got some great pictures of the (single) baby! The baby was moving its arms and legs while the ultrasound was being done. My original due date was October 22nd (our anniversary) and it got moved to October 19th due to the baby's measurements. My guess is that this baby is a girl. I will be pretty shocked if it is another boy. I will of course be so excited with whatever we have.