Bettin' Time

We are almost at the half way mark! It's hard to believe. Time has started to feel like it's flying by the last few weeks. Melissa is feeling great. Her congestion is gone! We started using a humidifier at night and she wonders if that has gotten rid of it, but she is not willing to test her theory. Melissa really has zero complaints as of now. She is feeling good and enjoying being pregnant. She has her energy back, as you can see in the above photo.

As Melissa wrote above, she feels the little passenger moving each day! We read that the baby is starting to be able to tell the differences between morning, afternoon and night. She has noticed that the baby tends to move most in the late afternoon and evening.

We are counting down the days to finding out the passenger's sex. Anyone want to place bets on it? You have pretty good odds. We will actually be finding out on April Fool's Day. We hope the passenger doesn't realize that and play its first joke on us. Melissa had a dream recently that the technician told us the passenger was a girl and she replied, "No. I really think it is a boy. Can you check again?" I asked her to please refrain from living this dream out in real life. Needless to say Melissa thinks it's a boy, in which case we're going to call it Wesley Snipes (you know, passenger 57).

Thank you for reading and keeping up with how we are doing on this adventure and thank you for any and all prayers you offered up on our behalf.

Man, I ain't no Wesley Snipes...(scene continues)...Wesley Snipes, Passenger Fitty-Seven!

Boy or Girl?

We're Prepared

We have had a pretty good week. We remembered Melissa's brother this week as it has been two years since he passed away. It is still difficult to believe he is really gone. It makes us sad that our children will not get to know him. He was a such a special part of the family.

We had our third visit with the midwife last Friday. Things are still looking good, and we got to hear the passenger's heartbeat again. Melissa is feeling pretty good. She definitely feels that she has her energy back, which she is thankful for. Her only complaint is nasal congestion, which apparently is a pregnancy symptom and not cold related in her case. She read that if you get congested it probably will not subside till the baby is born... I guess we will need to stock up on Kleenex.

The most exciting thing that happened this week was probably Melissa feeling the baby move for the first time. She sneezed and then felt the passenger pushing back a little. She has now felt the baby move quite a few times and always tells me. I unfortunately will not get to feel the baby for another couple months probably.

We're continuing to prepare for the baby. I got a gun this week...a shotgun. So, if we have a girl, we're set.

Well that is about it for now. We hope to post a picture every week from here on out. We will do our best, so stay tuned.

S/he's gonna be a soccer player!

Our Little Avocado

We have had two good weeks since our last post. We had fun traveling to California for Melissa's grandmother's 90th birthday party and seeing Melissa's family, especially the new additions since Melissa's last visit with them. It will be fun to add a new little life to the family too.

We are also working on collecting baby gear. We have decided to go the cloth diaper route. Most adults our parents age groan with disdain when we tell them our plan, but hey we are young...we can do it, right? We have been busy collecting them little by little. Just last week, we bought enough to satisfy the newborn size need (hopefully). Melissa was excited because we were able to get a really great deal on them, which I think might be her ultimate goal in life.

We've heard that Melissa could possibly feel the baby move as early as 16 weeks. Although, she has heard that with the first it might be a little later, more around 18-20 weeks or so. Just one of the many things to look forward to.

Like the picture says, we've been deep in negotiations regarding names. However, unlike what is represented in the picture above, it is Melissa who seems to come up with strange names. The ones that I have brought up are mostly normal (and awesome). We'll see how it plays out.

The passenger is now 4.5 inches from crown to rump (about the length of an avocado) and weighs abut 3.5 oz.

Until next time, the dude abides...

Ringing in the next Trimester!

Well, we have entered the second trimester. Sorry we skipped Week 13 because, well, there wasn't really much that was different from Week 12.

Melissa is starting to feel better every day. The nausea is pretty much gone, which means she may even do a few dishes here and there.

You can see a picture from our first ultrasound below. It was an incredible experience. We weren't really expecting much as far as what we would be able to see, so when the ultrasound technician brought up the first image and we saw our little baby, we both started to cry instantly. The passenger was moving its little arms and legs and bring its hand up to its face. The baby was even moving around in response to Melissa coughing and to the ultrasound tech pressing on Melissa's belly. Melissa keeps saying how cute our baby is, but I maintain that it looks like a little alien...a cute little alien, mind you, but an alien nonetheless.

At our last appointment our due date was changed. "Changed to when," you ask? Well, that's a good question. You see, Melissa thinks that the due date was changed from August 15 to August 16 based on readings from the ultrasound. However, what really happened was that the ultrasound showed a due date of August 16, but there was some other chart that showed a due date of August 13. I think that's the date they officially changed it to. So, to sum up, our official due date is...drumroll, please...either August 13 or August 16...but, really, it's the 13th. But then we were told that due dates for first don't really matter because the passenger will come when s/he wants.

The passenger is now 3.5 inches from crown to rump (about the length of a lemon) and weighs about 1.5 ounces.

Welp, see you later.

The Belly Pics Begin

So the belly pictures begin. Not much to pose with yet, although Melissa can tell a difference. We are both looking forward to the next trimester as Melissa will hopefully have a little more energy and tolerance for foods of the healthy variety. We were eating pretty healthy around here during the holidays and enjoyed eating the mighty greens and good grains like kale and quinoa. Then, starting about week 6 those things were no longer on the menu. There were a few weeks that Melissa could not even bring herself to say the word "kale" let alone go near it in the supermarket.

We're headed to the doctor this Friday to have an ultrasound and hear the heartbeat. I read in a book that if you can't make it to the appointment as the dad, you should send a tape recorder with mom so that she can record the heartbeat. We'll see if I have time to squeeze it into my schedule (you know, one of the most awesome things we'll ever experience).

We're well on our way to preparing for our little passenger. We signed up for birthing classes in June and we're excited to start that process. We're also reading books and articles to prepare ourselves as much as possible on this end, knowing that we still won't have any idea what we're doing when the time comes.

Until next time, you stay classy, Denver...or wherever you're reading this from.

Sharing Our News

We are having a BABY! We found out on December 8th and decided we wanted to tell our families while we were up at Crooked Creek Ranch for Christmas. Of course this meant keeping our joyous news to ourselves for two whole weeks! It was so hard not to shout it from the roof tops and keep it between ourselves, but it became a little easier when we thought about how fun it would be to celebrate with both of our families all together up at Crooked Creek.

We decided to tell everyone on the 23rd because we just couldn't wait for the 25th. We waited for the right moment when most everyone was in the same vicinity and gave both our parents a gift. Here is what it looked like when they opened it! We hoped the macaroni would throw them off just a little.Underneath the macaroni was a bottle of "Prego" pasta sauce with a recipe attached to the jar. The recipe was was as follows:

"Loyd Stew- Preheat oven to 98.6 degrees. Combine 2 lives until it makes 1 family. Bake for 9 months. No Peeking! Wait patiently and say lots of prayers. Will come out cute and cuddly. Hold immediately. Garnish with kisses and don't forget to share. Serves: 1"

It was a special moment for us to get to share with everyone. There was screaming, hugs and tears of joy. We plan to update this blog often as we look forward to sharing our joy and adventures with you all. Thanks for checking in!