Four Generations at the Zoo

And still pregnant, as you can see. :)

My mom is in town from California to help with the baby that hasn't made her appearance yet. :)  My grandma was in town for a few days too, so we went to the zoo! This was on Friday. Today is Sunday. Still no baby!

Ready to Pop

This milk and my pregnancy are scheduled to expire on the same day.

One week and counting!

We'll see which comes first; the empty milk jug or the baby. :)

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I already posted these photos on Facebook, but for those of you who may not be on there, here are some pregnancy photos I took a week and a half ago.

We're ready for you, little baby! You can come on out now!

20 weeks + I already feel huge so tell me how small I look.

I've seen photos on the internet of girls who look this big when they are 9 months pregnant. I'm only 4.5 months along. Boo. Granted they were skinner than me to begin with, and it was their first pregnancy so they didn't "pop" as fast as me, but I'm still wondering how on earth this belly is going to get any bigger, 'cause I already feel so huge! Ok, pity party over. What I meant to say was, look how cute my baby belly is!  :)  Haha.

And just for comparison's sake, here's my blog post from when I was 6-months pregnant the first time around. Um, ya, my belly is same size now as it was then. Insert huge-bellied sad face here. Ok, ok, again, enough with the pity party. The baby is healthy and that is all that matters, right? Right?!!  :)

20 Weeks + Sara was right!

I am 20 weeks along in this pregnancy today. That's halfway folks! Let the countdown begin!

We had our 20-week ultrasound yesterday and the baby is looking healthy. No concerns that they could see. But because of the heart defect Sara had, they are suggesting we get another ultrasound done in about a month by the cardiology specialists, just to get a closer look at this baby's heart to see if there are any congenital issues there. Mostly the doctors have told us that Sara's condition was a one-time thing and is unlikely to reoccur in other pregnancies, but it doesn't hurt to look more closely to be sure.

And now for the issue of the gender..... First of all, let me tell you that about three months ago, before we had even told Sara about the pregnancy, she woke up from a nap one day and started telling me all about a dream she had about the baby that was coming to our house. I was so surprised since we hadn't said anything to her yet! Maybe she just overheard us talking about it to each other? Or maybe she just had some sisterly intuition? I don't know, but she was telling me all about the baby and that it would be a girl and that her name was Trainer. No, that isn't a typo. :)  So for the past few months we have all been calling this baby Trainer, and if you ever ask Sara if it is a boy baby or a girl baby, she is very insistent that it is a girl. Well the ultrasound technician had a little bit of trouble determining the gender since the baby wasn't positioned perfectly, but she was able to get a pretty good shot and was very certain that Sara was right....IT'S A GIRL! 


In talking with Sara about what the baby, I'm pretty sure this is what she is imagining her little sister will come out looking like:

{from the children's book Pinkalicious}

Sara will tell you that the baby has pink hair and pink eyes. She hasn't said anything about pink skin, but I'm pretty sure she wouldn't say no to the idea. :) 

So there you have it, Sara is going to have a little sister! We are all very excited about it--except maybe Rob's dad who was hoping for a grandson to carry on the Hinckley name. Sorry Stuart! Maybe next time. :)

also known as

Sara is going by a new name, or will be around August 22nd.

More Belly Photos

My cousin's wife did a photoshoot with us on Saturday. She's getting started with a photography business and wanted some pregnancy photos for her portfolio. We did an urban, outdoor shoot (in the snow!) in downtown Salt Lake. It was fun! To see more, visit her blog by clicking here.

Baby Talk

So I don't mean to make this a pregnancy blog, but I was writing an email to a friend and felt like sharing part of it with all y'all (that one's for you Ericksens!). It's more pregnancy talk, so for those of you who aren't interested in such things, tune in for the next post (whatever that may be!). For those of you who are interested (or are just bored and will read it anyway) here goes:

This belly of mine sure is getting bigger! I sometimes forget and bump into the table when scooting in my chair, or try to sneak sideways through a tight space but then realize that's not so much of an option anymore. I even walked past a mirror the other day and was seriously surprised when I saw my protruding belly. It was like, "Whoa! How long has that been there!?" -- you'd think I'd be used to it by now. It's still so fun to feel her kick. Sometimes I don't feel much, and then other times it's like she's a little acrobat in there! I felt hiccups for the first time a few days ago. That was pretty funny.

I've said to Rob many times how weird pregnancy is, and how crazy it is that I'm carrying an actual person inside of me. A real, live, fully-formed (yet very tiny) person! Rob doesn't think it's that weird, and says, "Wouldn't it be weirder if the stork dropped it off on our doorstep?" To which I replied, "NO! I think that would be perfectly normal!" -- more recently he said, "Wouldn't it be weirder if we were marsupials and gave birth to tiny babies but then carried them in a pouch until they were mature enough?" Ok, you've got me there. That would be weird. But I still think carrying them inside of me is pretty dang strange. Anybody with me on this?

On a similar note, some friends of ours (who are also pregnant) recently shared an ultrasound photo that they had done at 12 weeks, and the baby was small enough at that point that they were able to get the entire body in view. We had an early ultrasound to determine the due-date, but we were only 6 weeks at that point so all we could see was a little peanut-shaped blob. Then by 20 weeks when they looked for gender we could only see sections at a time. So it was cool to see my friend's ultrasound with the whole baby all at once! But what's weird is, their baby at 12 weeks is just over 2 inches long (about the size of a lime according to babycenter.com) and weighs only half an ounce. That's SO TINY! But even at 2 inches long, the ultrasound shows arms and legs and a fully-formed (yet still in need of much development) body! It's just so crazy. You'd think I'd be over the craziness of it by now seeing as I've got a 15 inch, 2 1/2 pound butternut squash inside of me, but no, it still baffles my mind every time I think about it.

It's just so weird! :)

30 weeks down...

On the baby front, I've officially hit the 30 week mark, which means only 10 more weeks to go! For some reason 10 weeks sounds a lot shorter to me than 2 1/2 months. Not sure why. But I'm 3/4 of the way through this pregnancy! Craziness. Still feeling good, or "still kicking" (literally) as somebody at church asked me today. Other than the increasing uncomfortableness when trying to sit down/stand up or lay down/roll over (I just made myself sound like a dog!), things are going great!

6 months of Belly

Here they are, they belly photos you've all been waiting for (or at least some of you have). I'm not into the whole "bare belly" shots, so I'm fully clothed. (You're welcome!) And I still don't think they're all that great, but I'm just gonna put them on here anyway. We tried a few different days to get some good photos, and here's a few of the best ones.

THE BELLY: 26 weeks (aka 6 months)

Here's Rob trying to do an "artistic" shot.

Another day, another outfit.

Me trying to pose for a pregnancy catalog or something.

That's it! I already feel pretty big at 6 months, but then I realized the other day it's just going to get bigger and bigger.....YIKES!

Gonna be a FEISTY one

I had my 6th month doctor's appointment this morning. Every month he checks the baby's heart beat with the hand-held doppler thing. For the past few months it's been very easy for him to find the heartbeat. Just smear the gel on the belly, put the microphone on the gel, and there it is, loud and clear. But this time there was a lot of static and he had a little trouble finding a clear heartbeat. He could find it for a few seconds, but then she would move around and he'd have to move the tool to follow her. The best part was, whenever he would press on my belly, she would kick back! I could actually feel her kicking against the exact spot he was pressing on! Then he moved the microphone to another spot and she kicked it again! Then to add to the difficulty of finding a steady, clear heartbeat, I started laughing because she kept kicking! It was pretty funny. So we were able to hear the heartbeat just fine, just not as clearly as we have been able to in the past. But if this incident is any indication of how she'll be when she's born, we're gonna have some trouble on our hands!

It's a...

GIRL!

We had our 20 week ultrasound yesterday and found out that our baby most definitely indeed has "girly parts", as the ultrasound tech so tactfully put it. :) My prediction was wrong....As you may remember, I thought it might be a boy (so much for a mother's intuition!), but we are thrilled with a little girl! I had already purchased a cute little girl outfit that I couldn't resist before we found out the gender, so I guess it was meant to be. She'll have girl cousins on both sides of the family very close in age (Rob's sister's little girl was born yesterday!) so that will be fun.

In the ultrasound photo above, you are looking at the baby from the side, with the head to the left and the spine curving in the middle there. You can kind of see the face profile. If you look carefully, just above the belly is a little open hand. The cutest part about this was she was actually waving to us! Her hand was moving back and forth, it was so cute! So the ultrasound tech wrote, "Hi Mom and Dad!" on the screen. :)

Here's another cute shot of her two little feet. Classic.

We have good news!

Yes, that's right, we're having a baby!!

My cousin had a great idea of answering all the pregnancy questions people ask when they first find out you're expecting, so I think I'll do the same.

1. "How are you feeling?" It's true, people really do ask this question all the time. I've been very lucky to not have very bad morning sickness. In fact, I feel great in the mornings! I usually feel worst just before bed. But I haven't thrown up at all and have only had a few days here and there where I just felt icky. My mom was the same way and never had bad sickness, so I guess I lucked out by inheriting those genes!
2. "When are you due?" In case the small text in the above image is too hard to read, we're due on Jan 26th 2009. I just finished up my first trimester this week!
3. "Do you want a boy or a girl?" Of course we don't have a preference, especially since this is our first. I kind of feel like it will be a boy, but Rob thinks it will be a girl! So I guess either way one of us will be right. :) A girl would actually be fun since both my brother and his wife just had a girl (congrats to them!) and Rob's sister is due with a girl in September, so having a girl cousin the same age on both sides of the family would be nice. Also, even though I'm not superstitious so I don't really believe in this stuff, a few weeks ago just for fun, my sister-in-law and I did that string test thing to see what the baby will be, and it said a girl all three times we tried it! So I guess we'll just have to wait until the ultrasound to find out for sure.
4. Which answers the fourth question, "Are you going to find out the gender?" Yes, we plan to. As my brother says, it's just as much of a surprise to find out at 5 months as it is when the baby's born! Plus this way, you can plan better and have a name picked out, etc.
5. "Do you have any names picked out?" -- I try to dodge this question by saying, "we're waiting to find out the gender before deciding on any names." But in about 5 weeks, I won't be able to use that excuse anymore! The truth is, we do have a few names on a short list that we're thinking of, but nothing set in stone. We'll keep you posted!

So there you have it! If there are any more questions that I haven't covered here, then ask away! I guess the last question is, "Are you excited?" And the answer is YES we are!!