15 Weeks & a Vacay!

Yes, yesterday marked 15 weeks prego! Woohoo... only 25 more to go. I think there's been some definite growth in the belly department this week although the pic doesn't quite capture it as much. I swear there's been a few times I've felt movement in there, but really, I never really know what is going on in there so it could be anything. But there have been some very distinct "slithering" feelings and little "pops" and such that I can't help but wonder if it's Baby N. I pretty much have decided that it is, and it makes me pretty dang happy.

Here is my 15 week pic:So Sam and I have a pretty huge vacation coming up soon and I am SO freakin' excited. Like, beyond excited that using exclamation marks to describe it just cheapens the whole feeling. So yes, let me assure you I am ecstatic. I haven't really been thinking a ton about it because dwelling on an upcoming vacay to me just makes it come that much slower, but now that it is just around the corner I am starting to feel so unprepared and overwhelmed with how much I need to do before we go!

Do I have enough summer clothes that will fit? Where the heck is my passport? I need to do like 14 loads of laundry, some toiletry shopping, picking up around the house, and throwing away of everything perishable in our fridge. I suppose these are good problems to have though, and don't get me wrong... I'm not complaining. I love this feeling! We have people watching over our house/house sitting so at least that's taken care of. I won't be able to post my 16 week update next week (oh darn! I'm sure many of you are going to have to mark that off your calendar for next week... shoot!) but I hope to post lots of pictures of a tan prego Amy in two weeks :) So I'll make up for it, I promise. I don't want anyone to feel cheated out there!

So on top of being baby obsessed at the moment, I'm also feeling a bit puppy-hungry. I have ALWAYS been a dog person my whole life, and not having a little mutt of some sort running around the house has been hard for me. Well, at times. It's also really nice and the freedom that comes from being pet-free is pretty liberating too. But I think the perks of pets mostly outweigh the negatives. Luckily, we have some friends that have the CUTEST little English Bulldog puppy and we often get to puppy-sit. Last weekend "Duke" stayed with us and reminded me why I could probably go puppy-free a little bit longer. That guy was a TERROR. He's lucky he was made so cute because I'm not sure how long he would last otherwise.

I got a small taste of what having a toddler will be like because this little guy needed CONSTANT attention. If he wasn't within eye sight, he was definitely up to something. And even when he was within eye sight, he was up to something. He even cried off and on all night, waking Sam and I up at least 3 times. Am I ready for parenthood??

Anyways, we enjoyed it but I definitely got my fill of puppy-dom for a while. I wanted to blog about this a while back but got distracted and now seemed like the perfect time to talk about something other than pregnancy.

So folks, I'm signing off for a week or so and I will post pictures upon our return! When we get back, there will only be 5 more days until we find out what Baby N. is (hopefully it's a boy or girl) so leave your votes in the meantime... until then, adios amigos!

14 Weeks

So yesterday makes 14 weeks! Yay! Baby N. is the size of a lemon and weighs an ounce and a half! I feel like my belly has grown by leaps and bounds this week. I'm sure it's not correlated to the abundance of Halloween candy that has been available to me and I'm sure today's belly pic wasn't at all influenced by last night's dinner at Olive Garden. Nah, it's all baby.

We had our first appointment with our OB doctor yesterday, who has been my "female doctor" for 3 years now, and I love him. He was with us all through the mystery of trying to figure out why my cycle was messed up and he was the one that referred us to the reproductive specialist in Tacoma. It was SO cool to see him yesterday with me being all knocked up and such. He was super excited. I actually remember him saying something to me last year at my annual appointment like, "I want nothing more than for you to come in here some day and tell me you're pregnant." (I'm sure it has nothing to do with how much he makes off of prego-girls. I mean, he is kinda in that business. Nope, totally genuine.)

Anyways, the appointment went great and we got to hear Baby N.'s heartbeat for the 3rd time on doppler. Love that! I even recorded 10 seconds of it on my phone and have listened to it at least 30 times since then. Ok, maybe like... 40. Who's counting?

Things went well and I decided to finally out myself on Facebook, so it's official. The whole world knows! Three cheers for complete exposure!

Here is this week's 14-week Belly Shot:See? Definite improvement.

And lastly, be sure to take the "Boy or Girl" POLL to the right -->
(There are actually clicky buttons where you leave your vote. I know it's kinda hidden by the pale font but the days are a tickin away and I need this scientific approach to tell me what I'm having.) Looks like so far, ya'll are pullin for a girl!

I think I will be posting later this week in non-baby related news just so this doesn't completely become a pregnancy blog. There are other things going on in our life. In fact, there is something very BIG coming up in our life in just 9 days!! Look for that announcement soon.

13 Weeks

So I am officially 13 weeks and this is officially the first post of many weekly posts to come. At 13 weeks, the baby is about the size of a medium shrimp... about 3 inches and weighs almost an ounce. I am SO close to the 2nd trimester! Although I like to say I am in the 2nd, most people say it's not really until 13w4d when you're really in the next tri. My iPhone app has said I'm in the 2nd tri since I hit 12 weeks though, so that was kinda exciting to see when I loaded up my phone.

In other news, I have officially scheduled the BIG ULTRASOUND!! Yay! It's November 20th at 9:15 am. I can HARDLY wait!! We are super excited. I'm gonna post a poll and y'all can cast your votes for what you think Baby N is. I honestly have no idea and can't wait to find out so we can start shopping and planning and pinning down names. Although, I know we have plenty of time to do these things, it just makes it feel so much more real.

Here's this morning's 13 week shot:
That's first thing in the morning when I'm at my best. Get some food in that belly and the thing doubles... so weird! Even though that little baby is the size of a shrimp, having a uterus that's bigger than a grapefruit has got to count for something!

Welp, that's it for now! Short and sweet and more frequent... I promise!

Now take the poll... boy or girl?? -->

AND BABY MAKES THREE!!

Hello Cyberspace! It's true. All those rumors you've heard the internet bloggers speculate about... I'm leggo-my-prego! Knocked up! With Child! Got a bun-in-the-oven! A pea in the pod! Etc, etc... you get the point.

How did this happen you ask? Really...? Dumb question.

Ok, not so dumb... we didn't think it was possible either and yes, I was having problems in the normal-female-reproductive-functioning-area (aka: very irregular cycles. TMI? Maybe). Then one day at a check up with a reproductive specialist (think back to my "mystery health problems" post) where we were like, "Hey doctor, why don't I have periods like a real girl?" He was all like, "I don't know... let's do an ultrasound and take a look!"

After about 30 seconds he starts laughing. "Oh, I see why... you're pregnant. Yup. About 5 weeks." Apparently this is what 5 weeks pregnant looks like:

Crazy right? No, the black part isn't the baby. That TEENY TINY little white speck in that black part is the baby. Or really, more like a ball o' cells. The black part is my ute.

He told us to come back in 2 weeks and if all is well we should be able to see the heartbeat flicker. I'm telling ya, two weeks have never taken so long in my WHOLE life. Sure enough though, it did come and this is what we saw:

Yeah, this time it actually kinda looked like something... a little monkey, I think.

I thought after seeing that little heartbeat (beating at 140 bpm) all nerves would settle and this would start to feel real. Nope. I left the doctor's office feeling pretty good, but by the next day I still wasn't convinced. Luckily, we had another appointment set up for two weeks later (9 weeks) and he said we should see some baby movement. Yet again, the longest two weeks of my life. September 24 DID come. And yes, there WAS movement!! Yay!!

Not only did we see movement, but we got to see the heart flicker again, even in such detail that we could watch all 4 chambers of the heart move. Pretty crazy that a teeny little 9 week grape sized thing could do that. (Btw, the pic at the top of this post is from that appt.) We also saw all 5 fingers on one hand and watched the hands wave and the feet kick. Pretty cool.

Sitting in that doctor's office I thought... "ok, I can relax. The baby moves, the heart functions well, the heartbeat was 175 bpm... things are looking good. I'll never worry again." Yeah freakin' right.

I've heard the heartbeat on doppler twice since that last appointment Sept. 24 and am STILL on pins and needles for my next doctor appointment next Wednesday. Is that normal?

Well, today marks 13 WEEKS exactly, so I thought I better take the plunge and out myself to the world. It's official... I have a baby growing inside of me. My mom would probably freak out and think I'd gone all-porno if I posted bare belly pictures on here, so I'll keep it PG for the world wide web and save the skin shots for my personal collection. Sorry blog lurkers (I know you're out there!)

Here is my last week "belly" pic (please be nice and ignore the fact that it was first thing in the morning, in my PJ's with no makeup because that's the time of day when the belly looks best. aka: post-bathroom and pre-breakfast. TMI? Again?? Maybe. Let's blame it on the baby.) Ok.. here's the pic:
Yup. That's what a 12 week pregnant Amy Wang looks like. Stay tuned for tomorrow's post. It might include a 13 week shot.

Well folks, that's enough for one night. Now that I've outted myself, I promise I will blog more (I know you guys have given up on my empty promises) but really, I was avoiding blogging because with news this big since August, I was afraid to blog since I knew it would somehow spill out. These little fingers can be mischievous.

Oh, and please keep all pregnancy/delivery horror stories out for now. I'd love to hear them in 6 months. Sweet.

Goodbye Summer... Hello Fall!!

This is me being sad. At the moment I was being sad because I was about to send my niece off on an airplane back to Utah after a super fun extended weekend visit. I thought this picture was appropriate though since I am also sad to say goodbye to all the fun we had this summer!

We did SO much this summer!! Obviously I was just too busy doing all these things since I got absolutely NO blogging in. Maybe that will change. Big fat "maybe". Some of the things we did this summer are:

• My mom and dad came to visit for a whopping 10 days! It was SO fun and super nice to have them here for so long.
• Went to Boise for my sister Shelley's first Ironman 70.3.
• Did my first sprint triathlon.
• Sam played Hoopfest in Spokane.
• My niece Jessica came to visit for a long weekend (pictured above).
• I went to a week of Girl's Camp to be a YCL leader! Yay!
• Had a visit from Sam's brother Kasey & his family.
• I got my first black eye... from my husband! (Don't worry, it's not what it sounds like... it was merely an innocent jetskiing accident!)
• Hung out w/ Sam's other brother Brad in Seattle & his family.
• Had a long weekend visit from my sister Shelley and her family.
• Had two of my nieces and a nephew here for a quick visit.
• Went to the Long Beach Kite Festival w/ Sam's parents and sister & her husband.

And that about sums it up. It was insane here at the Hotel Nielson. Seriously. At one point we had housed 15 people over the course of 1 week. But we love it... wouldn't want it any other way!

Ok, so this blog really hasn't had any point other than just the fact I'm going to start blogging more regularly (seriously!) and making shorter posts. It doesn't have to be a novel! Don't I say that every time?

This week we have a LOT going on... it's Labor Day weekend and we're meeting up w/ Jodi & Jason in the 'Couve to do some river rafting (pray for good weather!), then it's my B-day on Friday!! Yay! Then Saturday is the Cougar game in Seattle, then Sunday is Sam's THIRTIETH B-day!! Woot woot! Whodda thought he'd make it this long huh?

Welp, this is me signing off and saying g'night until next time! There will be a next time, much sooner than this last time was... I promise!!

Allow Myself to Introduce... myself....

Well Heeeelllllooooooo!!!!

(Said in loud, bellowing, Jerry Seinfeld voice... you know, the one where the whole episode he does the voice that he thinks his girlfriend's stomach would sound like?? You don't know? OK, never mind.)



Ok, I'm gonna give this another shot. I loved blogging. Loved it. But it takes time! And I know all you mothers of small children with busy schedules are like, what?? You don't have time?? Are you crazy? Well, no. I'm not crazy and yes. I don't have time for everything. Who does?

Lately I have taken up digital scrapbooking due to some not-so-gentle prodding by my sisters and mom. They have a vested interest in this hobby since they run a pretty successful online-scrapping business found at www.weedsandwildflowersdesign.com. You can find it here. So that has consumed a lot of my computer time. And everyone knows that when one thing gets added to your plate, something else falls off. Well, for the past 6 months, that was blogging. And since I'm blogging today guess what doesn't get done? My hair? Maybe. The clean dishes put away? Hmmm, maybe. Some digital scrapping? Definitely. Ah well, such is life.

So, what shall the topic of my big triumphant return to blogging be about? An update of the last 6 months?? Nope. Too much work. Let's pick up right at today and go on from there. Updating the events of my last few months is too time consuming and is one of the reasons why I have avoided blogging for so long!

Oh, but yes, we did go to Australia. And YES, it was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. Pictures have been posted on my facebook page for months so if you're not my FB friend I guess you'll just have to miss out on the pictures of Heaven-on-Earth-white-sandy-beaches-clear-blue-water-incredible-food-etc.-etc.-etc. Moving on.

So, another thing that many of my friends and family already know is that I have been dealing with a little health issue for almost two years now, of which I'm not really gonna go into too many details about. Don't worry, it's nothing life-threatening and I think I'll probably make it. If you really wanna know what it is, just ask. Seriously. It's not embarrassing or anything, but still not something I want to post for the whole world to see. So. I have been playing around with different doctors and different treatments for a couple years now and each new avenue leads to something else. One doctor leads to the referral of another. Every. Single. Time. It's crazy because it just keeps getting more and more specialized with every referral. I mean, if you had hiccups for a week, I bet 7 referrals later you'd find yourself at a doctor who specializes in pre-menopausal-female-lung-abnoralities-who-were-born-in-the-month-of-July-and-like-to-sleep-in-a-curled-fetal-position. Trust me. There's a doctor for that.

Since it's no secret that I love to work out and watch what I eat in the form of tracking calories, my most recent doctor-specialist sent me to a nutritionist just to make sure I was getting sufficient dietary intake and that I wasn't overdoing the workouts while underdoing the eating. And although the nutritionist determined that I was definitely eating enough (duh! I love food too much to restrict it that much!) she concluded that I also ate too much junk. Oops. And that I should actually lose a few pounds. Of fat. Yikes.

AND NOW, THIS BRINGS ME TO THE TOPIC OF TODAY'S POST!!! FINALLY!!

Drum roll please................................................................................................................................


AMY'S NEW DIET. DOCTOR'S ORDERS.

I've been getting lots of questions from people about what this lady said I should be doing. Well, she definitely did a number on my diet, that's for sure. And I'm going to be following this strictly for one month to see how things feel. She even banned some of the things I thought were "healthy"!!

Goodbye Lean Cuisines. Goodbye Clif Bars. I will surely miss you. And goodbye Kashi-Go Lean! Crunch.... hello Kashi-Go Lean! (I will miss you "Crunch"!) Yes, those are two seperate cereals.

Oh, and goodbye calorie counting, hello portion counting!

This way of eating is very close to a South Beach Diet-esque approach, and even similar to the new and improved Atkins Diet. Very low grains, and absolutely under no circumstances would you allow simple carbs! No, no, no. No! Guess what that means? NO SUGAR!! No sugary snacks, no junky chocolate, no ice cream, no cookies, no brownies. No, no, no. No! Again.

She thinks my body is pretty intolerant to grains and starches in high amounts. And I'll admit. I was eating lots of cereal, pretzels, crackers, breads, granola bars, trail mixes, and ummmmm... sugars. So this is sure to do a number on the ol' system.

Wow, this post is getting really long. Is anyone reading anymore? Maybe I will stop here and then post what the diet even consists of later. What I CAN eat. Etc. Etc. Yup. I'll do that. Leave ya'll in suspense! How much fun is that??