Second Trimester--FINALLY

Woo hoo!! So today officially marks the day when I am no longer in the first trimester! I can hardly believe it, this day seemed so far away just a few weeks ago. So from here until 26th week (I think?) I will be in my second trimester which they say is the best one. The nausea and fatigue goes away and you supposedly just feel great. I have been feeling pretty good anyways so I have high hopes for this part of the pregnancy! I need to start cleaning out the closet in the guest room...it's sad that I have to give it up but I will be strong! PS...I am pretty sure I felt the baby move the other day but then I thought I was crazy because they say first-time pregnant ladies can't feel it that early or they don't know how to distinguish the difference between movement and gas. Well I am POSITIVE it was a baby moving! I just know it. So I consider myself lucky there too! I haven't felt it since but I sure have been trying to feel it a lot. People tell me to just be patient and pretty soon I will be wanting it to STOP moving so I'm ok for now. Well my next Doc's appointment is Jan. 23rd in the AM so I am sure I will have an update for you after that. Maybe they will be able to tell if it's a boy or girl?!?!

Baby's first photos!

Here is baby at 9 weeks measuring at 2.26 cm, that's a little less than an inch! You can see it's giant head and little arm knubs.

Here is baby again on the same day. I think this is from the back.

Here is Baby at 13 weeks measuring at 6.4 cm, or a little less than 3 inches. It has all of it's parts!

Here is the baby's face straight on. Kinda creepy I know. It's a little skeleton!

Here's a full body shot. Honestly I'm not sure if this is from the front or back...you decide. But isn't it cute?!

Side profile

Back of baby, you can see it's spine.

Boy or girl? I don't know!! This is a picture taken from below the baby so you can see both of it's legs and it's little butt. Maybe it's too early to tell...the suspense is killing me!

Belly!

OK so just for reference, here is me on our wedding day. Not lookin too bad right? haha well just wait for the belly pics.

Here is me on November 15 at 7 weeks. This is really hard for me ok! Showing pictures of my belly ugh! Well I know it is cool to see it growing so you better enjoy! Not much belly here yet. Just a lot of bloating and water retention...fabulous.

Here is the belly on December 26th at 13 weeks. Not as much bloating, but definitely a little belly! Hm well now that I see them side by side, there's not much difference. Oh but I'm sure there will be, just stay tuned.

We get to see baby AGAIN!

S I am a littlelate posting this because of all the crazy holidays and what not. I had my second doctor's appointment on Christmas Eve morning so I want to tell you about it of course! Unfortuately Ryan coudn't go because he had to be at a meeting for work, but my mom wanted to come so that she could hear the heartbeat (excited g-ma I guess!). So they do the usual "how are you feeling" and blah blah. The doctor uses the doppler device and found the heartbeat pretty much right away! Little thing was beating away at 154 BPM which had slowed down quite a bit from the 9 week appointment. So we are getting our coats on ready to go and the doctor says "Wait! Do you want an ultrasound? The tech needs practice to get her certification!" Um hold on let me think about it.....YES!!!! So I get to see all (well almost all) of baby Parks at 13 weeks. I was just in awe and amazement. I still am in shock to see that little baby with all of it's parts and know that it is inside me, crazy! The ultrasound tech showed me and mom the baby's brain, heart, lungs, spine, and you could start to see it's little bones forming as well. At this point, the baby has already developed all of it's organs, fingernails, teeth buds, genetalia and everything! It's so hard believe since it is only 3 inches long, everything is just in miniature! Wow, is all I could say. Baby was moving around like crazy so she had a hard time getting good still shots. I so wish Ryan was there to see it but he can come next time. Geez if I keep getting lucky with the ultrasounds, maybe I will have one every time! The question I keep getting is if they could tell if it was a boy or girl. Sadly, no :-( But, I totally now have this feeling that it is a girl and if you see me sometime in the near future, I will show the pictures and tell you why! But of course I could totally be wrong so I won't go out and buy a bunch of pink stuff yet. Although it is definitely tempting. I promise I will get pictures up here in a minute!

Our story..and finding out

Ryan and I got married on October 11th, 2008 in a beautiful ceremony at St. Ambrose Church in Des Moines, followed by an even better reception at the Hy-Vee Conference center. Everything was beautiful and we really couldn't have asked for more! A day after the wedding celebration, Ryan and I boarded a plane to CanCun, Mexico and spent a week there. It was absolutely wonderful. I still can't help but think it was some sort of dream to be on a honeymoon with this amazing man. We still get a kick out of calling each other "Husband" and "Wife", dorky I know but you know what I'm talking about! Well I won't go into all the detail of the honeymoon, it's like bringing out your vacation photos at a party, no one wants to see them or hear about it so I will just get on to the part you want to hear about.
We returned home on October 21, 2008 and reluctanty went back to work as usual. On that Friday night I was working until 8. Ryan was waiting for me at home so that we could go to the bar for our friend Merle's birthday. I stopped by the store to pick up a pregnancy test before going home. Now I will tell you this is true honesty, I had absolutely no reason to think i was pregnant at all! I had absolutely no symptoms, I was feeling fine but something just compelled me to get a test. Weird. Anyways, so i take the test before we go out with Ryan waiting for me in the driveway. I was pretty sure it was going to be negative so no big deal right? uuuhh well I was wrong needless to say. "um Ryan?" as I'm shaking, "Is this a positive sign or am I reading it wrong?" (duh you can't really read that wrong). And then we were in shock!! We were not expecting that! So being the paranoid person that I am, I took another one the next morning, then went to the family practitioner for a blood test which also came back positive. PARANOIA CHA CHA CHA. I guess I was just in shock and awe because I took about 5 more tests in the next few weeks, my friends told me I was crazy! At that time I was probably only around 4-5 weeks pregnant. For those of you who don't know, they count your pregnancy in weeks beginning from your last menstrual period, not the actual conception date, so you are actually already in week 2 or so when you conceive. Anyways....
After that I felt pretty good but started to feel some of the classic pregnancy symptoms like dizziness, and fatigue. And by fatigue, I mean the most tired I have ever been in my entire life. I did not expect that. I seriously could have slept 20 hours a day and still be dragging. It is crazy! So that lasted about 5 or 6 weeks which really sucked because on top of that I pretty much gave up on caffeine as well. Good decision in the long run, but bad for my productivity at work. Ha! oh well I am a little better now. Luckily for me, I didn't experience the horrible morning sickness that you hear so much about. I only felt nauseated probably one time at work, that was only because I was hungry and probably listening to someone boring talk to me. So I have been lucky in that aspect.
Bored yet? Didn't think so. Ryan went with me to my first OB appointment on November 26th, 2 days after my 25th birthday. We didn't think we were going to get an ultrasound because they usually don't do that so early but luck was on our side again! We got to see the little one! I was so amazed, I just could not even believe that little tadpole looking thing with a big head squirming around was our little baby! It was swimming like crazy I am not kidding! Ryan was so excited to see it moving and kicking up a storm. Of course I can't feel any of this but it was absolutely amazing. I will post pictures up here once I figure out how. They put me right at 9 weeks on that day, the little one was about an inch long and had a heartrate of 174 beats per minute. That is so fast!
So today I am a little over 12 weeks along. Just one more week until I am out of the first trimester, I hope the next two go as fast as this one did! I heard the second trimester will come with a lot more energy so I am looking forward to that! More to come

It's official!

Hi! So this is my first time officially blogging so that is new but the thing that is actually official is the fact that I am pregnant! You heard right, another Parks is soon to be born! So I will tell you the whole story about what was happening in our lives, how we found out, and what has been going on since. I hope to update week by week so you may get tired of hearing about my symptoms and complaints! ha! Well just know that no matter how much I complain about cramps, fatique, etc. we are both SSOO excited to be having this baby. It may seem like it was pretty sudden (and I guess it was) but we really have been wanting this for a long time and it is a true miracle. I think it is safe to say that I still can't believe it's happening to me! Well now I sound like a bad musical or something but I deserve to be cheesy every once in a while I guess right? Moms are cheesy so I am practicing!