Thanksgiving

Joe and I (and little Smith) spent Thanksgiving day with my parents in Hendersonville.  Normally Thanksgiving is a Cunningham Family celebration that Joe and I host at our house when possible.  This year I just wasn't up for hosting and cooking so we made dinner reservations at a restaurant on Main Street and drove up to spend the day with my parents.   These past few weeks have been hard on us when it comes to food.  Most smells make me gag, sometimes even looking in the refrigerator and seeing something unappealing makes me nauseous and hardly anything sounds good to me,  so poor Joe has really been on his own food wise.  It's been a lot of nights of take out or cereal.  So I was really looking forward to Thanksgiving dinner.  I LOVE mashed potatoes and gravy and the sides served at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I literally wait for them all year.  This year was no exception and I was anxiously counting down to dinner.  Unfortunately, things didn't go as well as I would have liked.  I was hit with a pretty vicious attack of morning sickness and spent the entire dinner trying not to let on how miserable I was.  All of the food tasted terrible to me, the smells were making me gag, and I was so disappointed that I wasn't enjoying this long awaited for meal.  The good news is, everyone else loved it and had a wonderful time!  It was really nice spending the evening with my parents, all the while knowing that their grandchild was safely snuggled up inside growing strong was icing on the cake.  Every day is a reminder now of how our lives are going to change, but I've never been more excited about a change in my life.  Next year at Thanksgiving, we'll have a tiny addition to our table and family tradition.  I hope they love mashed potatoes as much as Mommy does!

2nd Ultrasound and Due Date

We had our second ultrasound today and were blown away.  In two short weeks our little bean has gone from the size of a grain of rice to a gummy bear!  We could see a head and arms and legs and a heartbeat of 180 beats per minute!  That's up from 123 bpm's two weeks ago.  Our Doctor was really happy with that wonderfully strong heartbeat and assured us that this is a very healthy and strong baby and things look perfect.  At today's scan he/she was measuring 3 days ahead of their conception date.  We've been given 2 different due dates...July 2nd based on conception age, and July 4th from our first ultrasound.  I'm sticking with July 4th because it's easy for everyone to remember and the likelihood of them being born on either date is pretty slim anyway so I can pick the one I like best.  Either way, summer can't get here fast enough!

Pregnancy Symptoms

I have nearly every symptom that I can find in the baby books and internet and I find that really reassuring.  The constant nausea isn't pleasant but in a weird way I really like it...it let's me know this baby is healthy and that things are normal.  Morning sickness is a sign of a strong healthy baby, so anytime I don't feel queasy is really more upsetting to me than when I do.  Eating carbs helps calm my stomach, so that's what I do...constantly.   The books say this will probably let up around 12 weeks, but I'm a little nervous for it to go away since the baby is so small right now that the nausea is my only link to this being real.  I can not wait for a belly and to feel movement!!

First Ultrasound! 6 weeks 3 days

We went in for our first ultrasound today and saw one perfect little bean on the screen, and heard a tiny galloping heartbeat of 123 beats per minute!  A fetus' heart beats twice as fast as Mommy and Daddy's.  Our little one's heart only started beating in the last few days, it will get even faster as time goes on!  Amazing.  It was a truly emotional experience.  Seeing them there measuring exactly on track, with a healthy heartbeat was a dream come true.  There were tears of happiness for sure!  And of course a picture of our little one to take home and put in a baby book.  They don't look like much right now, just a tiny grain of rice, but in a few short months that little grain of rice will be here for us to love and cuddle and we just can't wait to be their parents!!