The Rumors Are True...

Hi friends!

Well, after 2 months of suspenseful waiting and secret-keeping, and a scattering of VERY few and far between blog posts, here is the post I’ve REALLY been dying to write since November 1st. The rumors are true, WE’RE HAVING A BABY!!!

Sam and I decided to wait until after the first trimester was almost over to break the news to the world, and now that I’m less than a week away, what better way to tell the world than on our blog?! Now that we’ve started telling people, I just can’t seem to stop myself from telling everyone I see! Friends, neighbors, strangers, you name it! :)

Here are the facts: I’m 13 weeks pregnant right now. My due date is currently July 13th--yay for July birthdays! (Mine is the 25th) We are planning to find out the sex of the baby around 18 weeks…probably right around Valentine’s Day. (Do you seriously think my control freakishness has the patience to wait until this baby is born to find out how to decorate the nursery/what clothes to buy/etc.?) I’ve been a little sick here and there, but nothing too unbearable. Sam and I are SUPER excited, as well as a little scared about being first-time parents, but we know that we have a great support system around us to coach us through the process and give us wonderful parenting advice!

Now, I’ve already started getting a few requests for belly pics. There’s not a LOT to show yet, other than a tummy that looks like it ate a few too many Christmas cookies and fudge (which it did), but I’ll go ahead and post a few pictures for my curious friends who would like to see the difference…

5 weeks

13 weeks

Since I knew I wouldn’t be able to blog about this for a while, I immediately started keeping a little diary of my early pregnancy days, so I’ll post a couple entries from that below for those of you still reading…

November 1, 2009 (7:53 AM)

Dear Equate Pregnancy Test,

You are a cheap piece of crap and I hate you. You tried to trick me this morning by not showing anything for the first 1 ½ minutes and then all of a sudden decided to show a VERY subtle, faint blue line in the pregnancy window. Given the fact that I was still half asleep, it took me about 3 minutes to actually decide if there was even a line there before awakening Sam from a deep slumber to make him come in the bathroom to verify. I decided your cheapness caused the blue dye to inaccurately bleed through, so I decided to return to Wal-Mart later in the day to buy a “real” pregnancy test. You stink.

Disregards,
Crislyn

November 1, 2009 (2:04 PM)

Dear Brain,

Where have you gone? Apparently all it takes is one “sort of positive” pregnancy test to make you flee to the hills. This morning I forgot to put in my contacts before church, and I didn’t even realize it until we were in the auditorium and I realized I couldn’t see anything on stage or the screen. After church, I laid down for a nap before the baby shower I was planning to go to. Of course I forgot to set an alarm, and I woke up with an incredibly deep sleep line across the whole left side of my face. I’m not joking, it was like the Great Divide. And then I walked out of the house to go to the shower without the baby gift. Or my contacts. Luckily I remembered right as I was backing out of the driveway, so I came back in the house, put in contacts, and grabbed the gift. Only to realize I had no idea where I had put my purse. It was still in the car. Apparently “pregnancy brain” is no joke...

Thoughtlessly,
Crislyn

November 1, 2009 (4:07 PM)

Dear Clearblue Easy Pregnancy Test,

Oh my goodness. You are ALMOST solely responsible for the slight panic attack I had in the bathroom about 3 minutes ago. (Well, you and the husband who did this to me…haha.) I didn’t REALLY expect you to tell me what you did, so when the 3 minute timer went off and we walked in the bathroom to see the results, you can understand why I nearly passed out. Not that I’m NOT excited, I just was not expecting you to be so DIRECT. Thank you for being easy to read though, you saved me the extra stress of trying to decipher what the lines (faint, blue, pink) meant. I will take many pictures of you and save you until I decide it’s been long enough and I need to throw you away since I peed on you.

Respectfully yours,
Crislyn

**Note: I currently cannot find the pictures we took with the positive pregnancy test, but I'm sure you can use your imagination to picture it...white stick, word "pregnant" undeniably clear, and 2 ecstatic/surprised/excited/slightly scared new soon-to-be parents smiling hugely at the camera!

So there you have it, folks. Baby Ward is on his/her way!! :) I’ll try to update more regularly about the pregnancy (and other non-pregnancy related things for those of you not as interested in ONLY reading about the baby I’m growing) now that I can talk about it openly.

Random Fact:  I have been LOVING me some pickles.  Not just any pickles, they have to be of the Claussen variety...that's the only way to go.  But still, I've been loving them.  Want proof?

Yes, I'm drinking the pickle juice out of the jar with a straw.  But really only for the picture...I honestly only took a tiny sip.  (I didn't want to pickle the baby!! :))  Stay warm out there in this frigid, arctic weather…