'Tis the season

Wow, lots to update everyone on! Since our last post, we had one OBGYN checkup, a glucose tolerance test (yuck!), another ultrasound at the hospital, and a trip to Nashville. Not to mention that my belly is getting HUGER every day. It's been a busy 6 weeks!

About a week ago was the one month checkup at Dr. Burroughs' (my OBGYN) office. It was at this time (25wks) that I had to do the glucose tolerance test, which luckily I passed. Yay, no gestational diabetes!!! Then I had a quick meeting with my doc and we listened to Hanna's heartbeat (still strong and healthy!). Next appointment is Jan 6th, then after that it's every 2 weeks until my 9th month. It's going so fast ...

This past Friday (Dec16th) was the big follow-up ultrasound at the hospital. Luckily we didn't have to wait very long to get in or to hear the news we were anxiously awaiting. The ultrasound tech was able to tell within 10 seconds that the placenta is "like 6 blocks away" from my cervix (her exact words!), so everything is all clear now. J and I sighed a breath of relief, then went on to get another ultrasound show of our baby. This time was better than the last because she is so much bigger and very active. She kept moving around when we we tried to see her, which was cool to see on the screen and feel in my belly at the same time. The tech said Hanna weighs 2lb 2oz right now and is in the 61st percentile for size. Jason's and my favorite part was watching her swallow; you could actually see the fluid moving down her throat- so cool! Here's a profile pic where you can somewhat tell she's swallowing.

Here's a cool picture of her right leg and foot. She's getting so big that you have to move all the way across my belly from the head to see a leg.

This one is a little harder to distinguish at first glance, but this is a straight-on picture of Hanna's face. You can see the eyes, nose and mouth, although the bottom side (her left side) of her face is shadowed.

Last week I encountered my first real illness during the pregnancy. I got a cold starting on Tuesday and ended up missing a day of work and generally feeling cruddy all week. Here it is Sunday and I am still congested! Oh well, colds are just a part of life that apparently don't stop even when you're preggers! I've also been experiencing round ligament pain a lot more, which is basically the ligaments and muscles and everything in your abdomen stretching out to accommodate the expanding uterus. Unfortunately the cold did not help this situation, as I had a horrible cough all and all the coughing made my abdomen hurt more from the strain. I'll be very glad when I'm feeling healthy again!

Like I mentioned before, my belly has taken on a life of its own lately. Every day I stare at it, shocked at how big it's getting. (And yes, I know I still have 3 months to go and grow!). This picture was taken this morning on our way out the door for the gym.

As we're wrapping up 2011, Jason and I looking forward to a little R&R. Christmas is a week from today, and we will be visiting my family in Boerne. We're taking that whole last week of December off to spend time with family, go hunting (J, not me!), and basically relax. As excited as we are for Hanna to be here, we also are looking forward to our last Christmas just the two us. This year we have so many blessings to be thankful for and this truly feels like a magical Christmas to us.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of our family and friends. More updates to come in 2012!

The Good, the Bad and the Oh-So-Cute

Friday morning we did the big ultrasound at the hospital. The lady that did our ultrasound was very sweet and helpful, we really liked her. She asked us at the beginning if we wanted to know the sex of the baby, and we said we wanted "confirmation" of the sex. She told us not to tell her what we knew already so she could make an unbiased assessment. :-)

We started the ultrasound, which took much longer than normal because the tech was looking at every part of the baby and taking a lot of measurements. We first looked at the skull and brain, the arms, the spinal cord, then the internal organs such as the kidneys and liver. Here's a pic of the spinal cord and one of the little arms.

At this point the baby flipped over for the tech to show off her little girl parts. Hanna is definitely still all girl!!!

Then the baby started being difficult (takes after Mommy) and did not want to cooperate with the tech. She was trying to get good pictures of her legs, feet and heart. This required a lot of time and unfortunate jabbing of the ultrasound device into my belly. (not comfortable!) After much effort, Hanna finally started cooperating and we got some really great pics.

One of the final pictures was our favorite. Hanna flipped over to give us the perfect profile shot. What a cute little face! This is my new background on my phone and makes me smile every time I see it. :-)

After the ultrasound tech finished with the pictures and made a lot of notes, a doctor came over to review everything with us. The doc went through most of the pictures very quickly, but slowed down once she got to the heart. She was studying the pictures and then watching the video of the heartbeat for what seemed like forever! I think both Jason and I were holding our breath the whole time. Luckily at the end of her review she told us that everything looked great and there were no visible defects found. What a relief!!!!

This morning I had another checkup with my OBGYN. She listened to Hanna's heartbeat again and answered my normal list of questions. We then discussed the ultrasound results from Friday. She informed me that, although I haven't had any symptoms, I have a condition called placenta previa or low-lying placenta. Basically this means that the placenta is on the bottom of the uterus and is partially covering my cervix. This can result in complications later in the third trimester and ultimately require a C-section, but it is still early enough in the pregnancy to correct itself. Apparently this is somewhat common and 90% of women who find this in the second trimester experience that the placenta moves away from the cervix as the uterus grows. My doctor ordered me to take it easy (not bedrest, just laying low) for at least 6 weeks until I go back to the hospital for another ultrasound assessment. Chances are everything will be fine, but I will keep everyone updated on the situation.

Two weekends ago I was very happy to have Daddy (Jason) home all weekend. He ended up cleaning out the room and painting the nursery in one day. It looks great! We also got to pick up the crib and put it together that Sunday. I also started on an art project to cover the letters in Hanna's name in cute fabric, which Grandma Mimi helped me finish. Here's a picture of the results of our busy weekend.

Time has really been flying by lately. I can't believe I'm already 20 weeks along. That's halfway there! For the most part I feel great, but I have started feeling some physical symptoms more lately. I am hungry ALL the time. My lower back is getting sore, but only when I do a lot of walking or standing up. The other day I had a big sneeze and I felt my uterus and other muscles seize up in my abdomen, then I was pretty sore afterward. Very weird feeling, so let's just pray I don't get a cold this winter!

I also recently started feeling Hanna moving. It is so faint that I'm afraid I'm imagining it, but I'm sure within a couple of weeks it will be hard to ignore!

Lots of love,
J & T

What is that I see? A B or a G?

Jason and I have had a very exciting and busy week. Last Thursday we had a doctor and ultrasound appointment. I was almost 17 weeks, so we were quietly hoping we may be able to tell the sex of the baby from the ultrasound. The ultrasound tech was very thorough, guiding us through the many parts of our baby and pointing out all of the organs and limbs and even tiny digits! We saw two kidneys, a functioning bladder, and a heart with 4 visible chambers (see below). Everything looks absolutely perfect so far.

However, whenever we tried to check out the baby's boy or girl parts, Baby R would not cooperate. We had one shot of a leg with the other foot in the crotch, another one with the legs crossed . . .

Finally SHE decided to give us a break and let us check her out. We got two pretty good pics of her girl parts; the biggest indicator is the three little lines in the top picture (or the lack of a pee-pee in the second one!). The ultrasound tech said he was 99.9% sure she was a girl!

Needless to say Jason and I were very exited. We have both felt this was going to be our daughter since the beginning of the pregnancy, so this confirmation was very welcome. The tech got us two really great pics of her face that we'd like share. Please meet our beautiful daughter, Hanna!

She is beautiful, isn't she? Maybe we're a little biased! :-) So this all happened Thursday morning, after which we quickly called grandparents and family to share the wonderful news. Everyone was thrilled, and I think some grandmothers may have been so excited that they felt a shopping trip for baby girl dresses was merited. :-)

This weekend was also very fun, as Jason and I went to order a crib (attempt #2) and did some more registering at Babies R Us. We picked out the theme for her bedroom, which will be a feminine jungle theme with shades of lavender, ivory, brown, yellow, green and orange. We also test-drove a few gliders for the nursery and found a very comfortable one fit for us giants. And of course, we registered for a few cute little girl clothes that we just couldn't resist. It was a lot of fun! Jason had his eye on a particular outfit that he said we just had to have. I think someone is going to spoil this baby girl rotten!

So as you can tell, it has been a VERY exciting week for the Rehovskys. Words cannot describe how happy we are. The next few months are going to fly by and before we know it Hanna will be here. We cannot wait to meet her!

Our next big milestone will be on November 4th for the big 20-week ultrasound at the hospital. We will get another confirmation of the sex and the doctor will do a more thorough look at all of her organs, etc. Although so far everything has looked perfect with Hanna and the pregnancy, we are still looking forward to the confirmation that there are no birth defects or complications.

On a separate note, we are so excited that the holidays are coming up! We cannot wait to see family for Thanksgiving and Christmas in Nasvhille and Boerne. I'm growing a really nice belly for you guys to rub when we get there.

We hope that all of our family and friends are doing well and we truly appreciate all of your love and support. We feel so lucky to share this wonderful blessing with all of you.

All our love,
J and T (and H!)


P.S. Sorry for the delay with updating the blog! We were waiting to get electronic pictures from our ultrasound last week to share with everyone. :-)

Whose nose is it anyways?

What an incredible day! We had our first OBGYN appointment in a month, so we were eager to check in on Baby Rehovsky. We had to wait forever to use the ultrasound, but it was definitely worth it. Instead of the little peanut we saw a month ago, we saw an actual tiny little baby!!! We could see the head and torso, the little arms and hands and legs kicking around. We were amazed at how active Baby was! He/She was practically doing flips in my belly, but I can't feel anything yet because the baby is just over 2 inches long now. The heartbeat is still strong at around 150-160 bpm. The pictures do not do it justice, but we are so excited to present . . . BABY REHOVSKY!

That first one is our favorite. You can actually distinguish a profile, so we're trying to determine whose nose Baby has! Any thoughts?

This next one you can make out the little hand above the head waving hi to us. So cute!

Our doctor was almost as excited as we were- she said that was one of the best ultrasounds she's ever done on anyone this early in the pregnancy. I am about 12 weeks now and she was able to find the baby through an abdominal ultrasound right away.

Speaking of abdominals . . . My little baby bump has definitely popped out over the past week. I've been noticing my waist getting a little thicker over the past few weeks and my clothes getting tighter, but within the past few days other people have actually been able to tell too. I have mixed emotions about this- on one hand I am so thankful that the baby is growing and doing well and I look forward to having a big prego belly. But then there is that silly female side of me that has tried to stay trim for the past 15 years and I just feel like I look like I have a huge beer gut going on. :-) Overall I know that this is a blessing and we're very excited to have a physical reminder everyday of our growing baby.

We will try to keep updating the blog more often, even though we don't have another doctor appointment until October 13th. We have a feeling that things will start to change pretty quickly now and we cannot wait! Thank you for checking in our on growing little family!!!

The Traveling Raspberry and the Great Mommy Frisking

Monday (August 15th) was our third OBGYN appointment in three weeks. It is amazing how much has changed in that small span of time. The first week all we saw on the ultrasound was the gestational sac, which looked like a little black oval. The next appointment we saw a tiny little baby and a little heartbeat, but it was so tiny it was hard to see anything. This week it was amazing how much bigger the baby was! Although it still doesn't look like a baby yet, it has grown to be the size of a raspberry (or about 0.6 inches). The pictures below are somewhat fuzzy (very disappointing, but we had someone else taking the ultrasound pics this week), but you can see how much more space the baby takes up in the sac. We also saw and heard the heartbeat again. It was much stronger and faster at 170 bpm- hard to miss! The doctor says everything still appears very normal, which is reassuring. We're now clear to just go about our "normal" pregnant life until our next appointment on September 12th.

Last week Baby Rehovsky took his/her first real trip in Mommy's tummy. Jason and I flew up to Denver & Breckenridge with our friends Dave and Alisa to spend a few days out of the Texas heat and to celebrate Daddy's birthday. We had a lot of fun and did a lot of good eating! While Mommy couldn't participate in the alcohol embibement, everyone else appreciated the DD for Jason's birthday festivities in Breckenridge! Special thanks go out to our gracious hosts Dustin and Krista- thanks for the great time!

Today is Baby's second trip as Mommy went to Nashville for a quick business trip. (Sorry Nashvillians, I am literally here for 7 hours, 5 of which are in a meeting. Sorry I missed you guys!) The highlight was definitely getting the full body patdown in the middle of Houston Hobby airport. Apparently pregnancy is not a good enough reason to skip the full body scan machine and do the regular walk-through metal detector, so I got frisked in front of hundreds of people this morning. Good thing I'm not shy because I hear that all your modesty goes out the window during pregnancy and especially childbirth. This was just a mild preview. ;-)

Although we don't have another appointment for a month, we will try to keep posting updates as often as we can. Thank you everyone for all your love and support! We love you!

A beautiful sight

Yesterday morning was our second OBGYN appointment. We had another ultrasound and we were able to actually see the baby! On the left side of the sac is the baby (which still resembles an alien at this point), on the right is the yolk sac we saw last week. The ultrasound tech measured the fetus and said I am about 6 weeks and 4/5 days, which gives us the due date of March 25-26th.

Now for the cool part! We were actually able to see and HEAR a heartbeat!!! On the ultrasound it looks like just a little flicker of light, and then the tech put it on the speakers and we could hear a little swishy thump-thump sound. It was pretty incredible! The heartbeat was 117 bpm, which is normal at this early stage. I am going back on the 15th to see the heartbeat again, which should be up to about 150 bpm by that point. The doctor said everything looks great and totally normal at this point, which we were happy to hear. All in all in was a great morning. :-)

Even before our appointment yesterday, this has been a pivotal week in the pregnancy. Starting on Monday I've been having "morning" sickness (I've heard it also fondly referred to as hormone poisoning) for the better part of the day. Luckily I haven't actually been sick yet, but is still pretty miserable. It's a constant swing between feeling nauseous and starving all day, and eating something usually just leads to nausea again. I have been craving interesting foods (not necessarily weird, just different) this week too. On Thursday night I INSISTED that Jason take me to a Japanese restaturant for hibachi. (see pic below) That's a first!

I'm also starting to feel more and more tired every day. (Hence the reason why I didn't have the energy last night to update the blog!) I've gotten in the habit of taking a little nap every night when I get home from work, then still going to bed by 10:00! As difficult as some of these symptoms are physically, both Jason and I are so happy because we know they are all good signs that the pregnancy is going well. Yesterday was incredible being able to actually see our baby. We are so excited to be parents and welcome this blessed child into our lives. Less than eight months to go!!!

Here we go . . .

Welcome to our baby blog!!! We would like to document our journey towards our little one's arrival in order to share our great news with all of our family and friends, starting at the beginning . . .

This all started last Monday (July 18th) when my monthly cycle was already 2 days late. We were a little curious but didn't think too much of this since we had not been trying too hard so far to get pregnant. Nevertheless, we took a test and, although it said it would take 3 minutes, the test came back positive within 30 seconds. We were both in shock (and disbelief), so we took another test from another brand just to be sure . . . And sure enough, it was positive within 30 seconds again. So then reality sunk in and we were very excited, emotional, and shocked all that the same time.

The first week was hard because we were really trying not to tell anyone! That didn't last long. By Thursday we had told our closest friends at work, who were probably wondering why I was drinking only water at work everyday and had to pee every hour. On Thursday night we called all of Jason's family to tell them. All grandparents and aunts and uncles were delighted! There was lots of screaming during those phone calls!

The hardest thing that week was talking to my parents on the phone and not telling them our great news. We really wanted to tell them in person, so Saturday morning we piled in the car with the two dogs and headed down to Port A to surprise them. I think we succeeded! :-) We spent the night with them at the beach to celebrate, calling Uncle Matt in the meantime to fill him in.

We had our first OBGYN appointment this morning in order to confirm what a few pregnancy tests (okay, six pregnancy tests!) had already told us. The ultrasound tech said we are about 5 weeks 3 days along. It was too early to see a heartbeat yet, but we did get to see the gestational sac where the baby is hanging out. We also saw the yolk sac, which the tech said was a very good sign that everything is on track. We met with our doctor for a few minutes to talk through some of our questions. Our next appointment is next Friday morning when we should be able to see a heartbeat on the ultrasound!

So far the pregnancy is going smoothly. I haven't had any morning sickness yet, but I have definitely noticed some changes occurring in my body. Daddy is doing great, telling everyone he can the news with a big proud smile on his face! We are both very excited about our bundle of joy on the way and can't wait to meet him/her. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful network of family and friends to support us over the next 8 months. Thank you everyone for sharing in this truly magical time of our lives with us!