18 to go!

Wrote this a few days ago, but forgot to hit "Publish"! :)

This post is so bittersweet to write. I am so excited to be continuing our countdown, but I am also so sad knowing that a very important person is no longer here to experience the rest of this adventure with us. My grandpa passed away on Monday evening.

We got a call on Sunday morning that he really wasn't doing good and that we should maybe head over to Grand Forks to be with him. By the time we had arrived, there had been a pastor who came in and prayed with my aunt and uncle and grandpa. Not 2 minutes after that, grandpa was up and awake and hilarious! We had so much fun in those couple hours just laughing with him and joking around. He was definitely the most like himself that I've seen him in a long time--truly blessed to have had that time with him.

He was so excited about his first great grandchild! He would comment on how much I was growing every time I'd see him. He just wanted to "make 'er" to August to meet this baby. I am even more sad that my baby won't get to know him like I did. It is very comforting to know that him and my grandma are together now and watching over all of us!

Enough of the sad, now onto the happy! We bought our crib last weekend!! We bought it and got it home at 9:30 on Saturday night, and Tim decided he was going to start assembling, so had it all done by 10:00! It is really making it more of a reality, and definitely making the room look like a bedroom. Now to find a chair and a dresser.....

One other really exciting thing that happened this past week is that I felt the baby move from the outside for the first time! (S)He is so active throughout the day and the movements are definitely getting more and more noticeable!

The countdown is on....19 to go!

We are officially counting DOWN!! 19 weeks to go! :)

It feels so great to be over half done. Our next big milestone will be week 24, since that's considered the "viability week" and starts baby's best chances at survival. I've been feeling great and have been anxiously awaiting the time when I can start decorating and filling up the closet in our nursery!

Speaking of nursery, here's the lastest picture--complete with carpet and a closet door!!

And as I'm typing this, I just got a picture of the room with the trim all finished!!!! Yay!!!!

I have been obsessing about decorating the room and having it be all perfect--now is my turn to start that! I bought material to make a quilt for the baby, so I am also going to start that project.

Baby has been very active all morning! It's so fun that now I even notice the movements and kicking while I'm walking around, not just when I'm sitting still really trying hard to concentrate on that. We've been discussing names quite a bit, and are struggling with girl names. Tim is convinced baby is a boy so that we don't have to worry about girl names, but I beg to differ :)

Halfway!!!

This is by far the most exciting post I've written yet!! We're halfway to meeting our little nugget! I can only hope that these next 20 weeks go by as fast as the first 20! AND it was ultrasound day yesterday!

I just got a call from the Dr's office this morning and they said everything looked great, so I can really be on cloud 9! Before we started the ultrasound, the tech asked us if we wanted to find out, I said no right away, and told her not to ask me again because I didn't want to change my mind! She started with some measurements of the head, abdomen, legs, etc. Then it was on to the fun part! We got some really awesome pictures and we got to watch baby play around for a good half hour. During this time, I was so amazed at what I was watching on the screen, that it didn't even matter if it was a boy or a girl! That was the least of my concerns! I asked the tech if she knew what it was, and she said that she skipped over that area so that we wouldn't see something we weren't supposed to. She was so awesome at explaining what we were looking at. Baby weighs just shy of a pound already and everything is growing right on schedule. It was really cool to see the 4 chambers of the heart, the kidneys, and even the little tongue moving around in the mouth!! Baby was playing with his/her toes and sucking on his/her thumb--just way too cool! Best day ever, by far!! :)

Tim has said from the beginning that he's convinced baby is a girl--but of course yesterday he decided that he saw "boy parts" haha. I still don't have a strong feeling either way yet. All I know is I never realized how much love you could have for something that's not even physically here yet!! Come on, August!!

We also picked out carpet for the nursery and have the first coat of paint on the walls! I can't wait until it's done so I can start shopping and have a place to put my purchases! :)

Here are some pictures from yesterday: (oops..for some reason the first one got turned sideways...)

Any guesses?!

I have set up an online pool that allows people to vote on baby's gender, birth date, weight, length. It will be so fun to see how close people guess!! Follow the link to guess! :)

http://www.expectnet.com/games/CaillierBaby

19!

We are ALMOST halfway there!!! So crazy!!! I'm not sure where time has gone. It sure doesn't feel like it goes very fast when I'm sitting at work all week, but the next thing I know it's Wednesday again and a new week starts!

I get so confused because different site/apps tell me that baby is all these different fruits/vegetables. Sometimes I think we're going backwards because baby was the size of an apple a few weeks ago, now it the size of a tomato--but we had a sweet potato in there somewhere, too! Either way, the stats say that baby is about 6" long from the top of the head to the butt--and if it stretched all the way out would be around 10" long already! How is that fitting in my belly?!

I've been feeling movement pretty steady now. Baby gets really active when I haven't eaten or right after I eat. I was leaning forward yesterday in my chair and got a nice little kick shot to my right kidney! I know these are only going to get worse!! It wasn't painful, since baby isn't quite that strong yet, but strong enough for me to recognize it!!

The most exciting thing we have to look forward to is our ultrasound next Tuesday!!!!!!!!!!! I've been fortunate enough to have seen my baby twice already, I can't imagine how most people do it when you only see them at 20 weeks!!

Our nursery is progressing! I'll get to go pick out carpet next week, and the painting will get done next week, too! I have so many ideas I just can't wait to see the finished product!

One question I've been asked a lot this week is if I think it's a boy or girl. I have been going back and forth so much, that I really have no idea! We have been talking boy names, so that gets me excited for a boy, but then people tell me they think it's a girl, so that gets me excited for a girl! The dreams I've had lately haven't given me a definite gender answer either!! I guess we'll see in 21 weeks! :)