17 weeks, 5 days

We are 12 days away from knowing if we're having a baby boy or girl! ONLY 12 days!! Well, hopefully. Hopefully the baby is moving around with hands and feet clear enough to tell :) I'm pretty excited now, but the in a few more days I'm sure I'll be even more excited (let's be honest, I get excited so easily).

Ever since Jesse and I started telling people we were going to be having a baby, the people we have told in turn told us what they "felt" or "thought" the baby would be. Jesse's dad is SURE it's a girl, where as two of my dearest of friends are definitely feeling a boy (Jesse loves you both for that, Em and Megs). I've heard many old wives tales about how you can "tell" if it's a boy or girl..some of my favorites..

Morning sickness: if you have morning sickness, it's a girl. None it's a boy. While this is probably true for lots of women, my mom is a prime example of how this is not the case. She had no morning sickness with either Jess or me but felt awful with Joel. If this one were true, I wouldn't be sure. I avoided most of morning sickness but I guess I was nauseous some. If we count that, girl. If we don't, boy.

The rear end test: my new boss at work asked if my bottom had gotten bigger (it hasn't..I'm still fitting into the same jeans I was before I got pregnant) it would be an indication of the gender. Apparently, if it's a girl, you gain some mass back there. If it's a boy, you don't. If this one were true, a boy.

The age and month test: same boss also told me that if you take the age you were when you conceived (22) and subtract the month you conceived in (12) you can "find out": even is a girl, odd is a boy. So..if this holds true, it's a girl. I did find it ironic that in one sentence she was telling me that "oh, it's a boy!" and in the next "yup, you're having a girl.."

I also heard from SIL Erin that more often then not, a mother's intuition is correct. I asked my mom what she was "feeling" her grandbaby would be, and being the very diplomatic person she is responded with "Fraternal twins! One boy, one girl." Very helpful, clearly.

All the guesses and "tests" people have shared with me have been fun to hear and talk about, but let's be honest: only God knows what's going on. Even so, keep the guesses coming! And if you guess boy, chances are you will gain ground on Jesse's List of Favorite People Ever.

**sidenote** I have discussed the possibility of a girl with Jesse, and while he definitely wants a boy, he said he would be more then thrilled with a girl also, but "girls are so expensive!." He is clearly not picturing his son wanting to play football where we'd have to buy all sorts of useless pads and dumb equipment. Just felt I should throw that out there :)

17 weeks, 2 days

Well. Jesse and I are home for a few weeks now!! HOORAY!
I love that we've been able to see so much of our family over the past three weekends, but it has definitely taken a toll on us. And the housework that needs to be done..and poor Zeke.
it was pretty chilly for a few days last week, so Zeke bundled up on one of the few days we had him home and not at the kennel..

This past weekend (well, Thursday-Sunday) we were traveling to and from MI to help Matt and Erin move with the help of the H Parentals. It's always great when the 6 of us can all get together because it has happened so rarely with Jesse and me living in AZ for a bit and then Matt and Erin being 7ish hours away. By the time Jesse and I arrived, the actual moving business was done, so we got to help some with the home improvements (which is much more fun as far as I'm concerned).
Helping paint and do things around their house made me really excited for when Jesse and I will have our own house to do with what we please. Having rented for the past 3 years with all white walls and unable to do anything to make it really "ours" gets kind of old in my opinion.

Matt and Erin bought Baby Squirt his/her first onesie:
Even though Erin is a huge Lion's fan and this must have just been sheer torture to buy, apparently our baby will be supporting his/her dad's (losing) team in style. Jesse and I really enjoyed sitting with the BIL and SIL going through fun parts of "What to Expect When You're Expecting"..and by "fun parts" I mean "Wow Amber, did you know this? Glad it's happening to you and not me.." Lovely. I've decided I'm not worried about the pregnancy/delivering part: I AM concerned with the being the parent part.

That's about it from here! We find out what we're having in 15 days! So incredibly excited..Squirt continues to wiggle around some, but nothing Jesse can feel yet. On the ride home I'm pretty sure I felt a small kick, but it only happened once, so I'm still waiting for something that makes me sit up and go "JESSE GET IN HERE!!!!" And finally, Squirt can hear what we're saying at this point apparently, so I have my parents copy of the original Winnie the Pooh for us to read together :)

16 weeks, 3 days

The half marathon. Is. Over. *sigh of relief*
All in all, I'm so glad that I did it. This race went much better then my first half marathon and I think one of the big differences was that I had a running buddy, aka my dad, to help push me on when I wanted to sit down. We really had a great time running, and even though I really started to hurt around mile 10, the whole race was great. At the end when I was reliving it I realized that the first 7 miles had gone by so quickly and before I knew it I was working on mile 9. I hit my wall at 10, but then I realized I only had a 5k left and I'd done plenty of those, which made the last 3.1 miles go fairly quickly also. We ran pretty slow and finished with a 2:36 time, but we ran the whole thing except the water stops (because let's face it, I'm not coordinated enough to run and drink from a Dixie cup at the same time without wearing the majority of the water). I was quite thrilled that Baby Squirt cooperated and didn't do jumping jacks or turn somersaults until the end of the race..when I've been running recently, his/her movements have made me a little nauseous while running.

I think I'm going to keep the running up as long as I can..but not worry about any distances of course. Probably 3x a week, maybe 2-3 miles, just to try and keep active, but I'll start that next week :P I'm still too sore today to do much!

After this coming weekend, Team Hildebrand will be taking a break from traveling. With a trip to Findlay for Easter, a trip to St. Louis this past weekend, and with us leaving tomorrow evening for MI to help Jesse's brother and our sister in law move, I am ready to spend a quiet weekend here at home, sleep a lot and probably catch up some house work! You know that you've been traveling too much when you want to stay home to vacuum..

In other news though, Erin (SIL in Michigan) told me that at 4 months the baby is the size of an avocado! Not too big yet obviously, but big enough for now. Jesse found another supporter in the hope for a son (thanks Megs) and I'm just trying to wait patiently until we find out if we're having a boy or girl.

This is a picture I took at the St. Louis Zoo when we went on Saturday..I love the purple!


Before the race at about 630am..which I think explains why we both look half asleep.

aaaaaaaaand, probably about the last 100 yards, finishing up the race. I am determined to smile in the next race.

I already put a bunch of pictures on Facebook, but if you want to see more pictures from the weekend, check out my picture album here.

That's it for now!

15 weeks, 4 days

Some people have asked me how the midwife appointment went yesterday. I suppose I shouldn't have left everyone with a cliff hanger, eh?

The appointment went well though..heartbeat is sounding strong which always calms me. I have absolutely zero reason to worry, but since I'm not showing a ton yet or feeling much beyond flutters I get paranoid that something has happened to little Squirt in there, especially with me running and not keeping my heart rate where I should. Plus, the last month I have been experiencing pains in my stomach when I run or do other physical activities- talked to the midwife and she just explained that those were tendons stretching. Whew. We all knew I already was paranoid, but being responsible for growing someone and being the sole protector of a baby right now makes me more so. Awesome. Watch out bad guys, you won't stand a chance. All in all, the heartbeat sounds good, my uterus is apparently a good size- should I have been concerned?- and they are happy I stopped losing weight so I can run my half marathon this weekend!! Which..I would have done anyway, just not told them. No wonder they don't like me ;)

Jesse and I were able to talk to Rhonda (who we met with) about her views on the RhoGAM shot. Several things we found online- which yes, we know you can find anything online but we knew nothing so we did research- stated that it's only good for 3 days after a potential mixing of my blood and the babies and that most doctor's places recommend it at 28 weeks. Our question was why? What's the magical 28 week thing? Rhonda seemed to think that the shot would cover from 28 weeks through delivery (contrary to what we read, but she probably knows more then we do) and that the shot is not as important for the first baby as the following ones. Not sure what we're going to do, but definitely after s/he is born, I'll get the shot depending on if s/he is positive or negative (PLEASE BE NEGATIVE LITTLE SQUIRT). Not sure what we're going to do yet, but I'm not as anti-shot at 28 weeks as I was, so we'll see.

Also, we'll be finding out at the next visit (05/04) if we're having a pink or blue baby!!! SO excited. I don't know when they were originally going to do that ultrasound, but I asked if they could move it up because of a baby shower that is being thrown for us right after 20 weeks. But I'm ecstatic :)

Which means Jesse and I will have to decide on a name. We have a list of 6ish names to go from..
Wyatt- Jesse's pick. And since I got to name the dog, Jesse will get this as his pick if we have a boy. I'm fine with that, I like this name, but his middle name will NOT be "Earp" which Jesse keeps trying for *face palm*
Logan and Jacob were my picks for a boy. Jacob was a long shot because Jesse knew I'd call him "Jake" and he detests shortened versions of longer names. "We named him Jacob, call him Jacob" would be his argument. I don't know why he doesn't like Logan, but I'll save that name for the next one when it's my turn to pick ;)

Lily Anne- this is my #1 pick for sure if Squirt is a girl. Anne was my great-grandmother's name, and I would love to have that in there. However, we both really like Madison, so I think if it's a girl we might have to wait until we meet her to decide on a name. But I would only want our daughter's name to be Lily if she has blonde or red hair. I just don't see a brunette Lily when I think of her, so we'll see. Also on the list for a girl is Autumn. We had one more I thought but it is definitely evading me..so one of those three it is! I really wanted Ava Marie but Jesse put a vetoed that faster then any other name :( I was really bummed..

That's it for now! Sorry I got long winded.

15 weeks, 3 days

I have a midwife appointment in a few hours, but beyond the feelings of flutters in my tummy I don't have much to report. I have a list of questions for my midwife and topics for discussion, so I hope she's ready. Questions/discussion topics include the RhoGAM shot, 20 week ultrasound, getting up to date information on what's going on with me for my trip to St. Louis this weekend, and unfortunately don't remember the rest right now, so I hope I remember before my appointment is over!

Other then that, PICTURE TIME! Yay! Jesse, Squirt and I went to Findlay last weekend for Easter and had a blast.


And yesterday, Jesse and I went to Lowe's and purchased things needed for our first "garden"-- you should prepare yourselves to be amazed.

ha, okay so we don't have enough yard to have an actual garden, but we're growing lettuce and tomatoes in the pots and I'm super excited about having some fresh lettuce this summer so I can have a salad whenever I want.




Just some different shots of things in the yard..The one with the cars is actually me trying to show you the random placement of the tulips?! Who plants flowers in the middle of the yard? Regardless, I'm excited for them to bloom.

14 weeks, 5 days

I've decided I need to start compiling a list of all the precious things that are said to me/my stomach regarding the baby. From time to time (as I remember), I will try and post some here for the reading pleasure.

"Hi there little guy..I'm your daddy and I love you." -obviously Jesse

"Well, just put a soccer ball in front of your stomach, and if it kicks, we'll know it's yours." -Aunt Jess

"S/he's just kinda swimming around in there.."
"Oh!! My niece/nephew is gonna be a swimmer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" -Crazy Aunt Limey

Text conversation with Uncle Joel.
Me: when I find out I'm pregnant, do you want me to just send you a text or call you?
Joel: call
Me: *dials* hi!
Joel: *silence* ...hi...
Me: this is me calling you!
Joel: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH MYYYYYYYYYYYYYY WORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD.

"Don't look at me, I don't want baby to see my angry." -Jesse

Right after we found out at about 4 weeks, I was able to see sister-in-law Erin. Her response was screaming, and then "can I say hi to it now!?!?!?!?! Would that be too weird??!?!?"

At the 8 week appointment for the first ultrasound and check-in:
"We won't be able to hear a heart beat..it doesn't have one yet."
"Jesse...it's alive. How do you think we have an argument against abortionists? It definitely has a heart beat, and we'll be able to hear it today."
*softly, awed* "We'll be able to hear it's heart beat today?!"

"It looks like a shrimp..and sounds like a dog barking." -Jesse (looks like a shrimp in the first ultrasound, heart beat sounded like a dog barking far away I guess).

I'm sure there have been more, but they aren't coming to my brain right now. I'll post more as I think of them :)

--Real fast. I am starting to feel "flutters" which is really exciting for me. Jesse can't feel 'em yet, but I'm excited for when he'll be able to.
I got a call back to the Y for a second interview!
We get to go to Findlay this weekend for Easter!!!!! That's all.