Oh BOY!

Hello again everyone! Well my 13th week has flown by! My last day of work was Friday (the 24th). I think having so much free time on my hands has made time go by faster. Colt and I have been looking forward to an ultrasound this week for a long time.

Today, we were running late getting to the ultrasound. We left in plenty of time to get there, but about 3 minutes into our trip down to Clearwater, Colt's Jeep Grand Cherokee decided to die on us! Thankfully we pulled into a parking lot before it conked out, and we were able to restart it easily to get it home. So, after going home to switch cars, and getting back on the road, I was nervous that we weren't going to make it in time. We called ahead and told them we were running about 15 minutes late. When we got there, Jen (the ultrasound tech) was so nice, and understanding. I hopped up on the table, excited to see the baby move for the first time. Our last ultrasound, at 9 weeks revealed a chicken nugget with tiny feet inside my womb. This week, it was a baby! The ultrasound tech started to prod around on my belly, and then, there he was! I even said, "Look at him!" She said, "Or her, we still don't know." A few seconds later, my mom and I were "ooing and ahhing" over the little feet and the little hands, and the ultrasound tech chimed in, "And there is his ("boy part"--in case we have any young readers)!" She was just as shocked as were were to see anything. We were told from the beginning that we probably wouldn't be able to tell. She did a pretty extensive check-up on the little guy, and she said she could see two little kidneys, a pancreas, obviously the heart, and all fingers and toes were accounted for! He was being really cooperative the entire time that we were trying to see his face, and front of his body, but at one point he was OVER IT. He quickly flipped himself around, away from the camera. At one point, he stuck both of his little hands under his chin. Colt said it looked like he was posing for a Glamour Shots session. He also decided he wanted to wave to us from inside there. It was so cute! I posted a picture at the bottom of this text. The heart rate was 135 this week, which is supposedly indicative of a boy as well. He was measuring at 4 inches, and 4 oz. She said I am measuring at 15 weeks and a few days, when I'm actually only 14 weeks as of Wednesday (the 29th). She said the baby is big for its "age", and we could potentially deliver earlier than we think, but that can always change as well. We are supposed to come back in 4 weeks, and have another ultrasound just to make sure of the gender. She said she's almost 100% sure its a boy. He kept moving his little rear end in front of the camera to show us! She said, "If that's not a boy, I will be shocked!" It was very apparent. It was so amazing to see his little profile. We are planning on naming him Cash (but this is subject to change).

Another funny side note...My mother was reading the newspaper, and came across my horoscope this week. This is in no way advocating the belief in astrology, witchcraft or the like, but I just thought it was a funny coincidence. This is from the July 28th edition of the St. Pete Times, "Surprise gifts, goodies, and favors might come your way today. Someone might even give you CASH!" Weird, huh?!?

So there it is! We can't wait to see him again on screen, and in person in January!!! I'm sure I will edit this post further with information that I am forgetting to mention. I just wanted to get something up in the mean time. The pictures below are a profile shot at the bottom, and a picture of the baby waving to the camera on top! Thanks for reading!

My Nausea Vacation and Crazy Cravings!

I just wanted to write a quick post about the last few days. I'm still in my 12th week (12 wks, 4 days to be exact), but around 12 weeks, 1 day, the nausea went away! It just disappeared. Thursday at work I had a few minutes of feeling mildly nauseated, but this is leaps and bounds better than what it has been. Friday, I had maybe one episode of mild nausea. Today...NOTHING! This is awesome! I don't know if the nausea will come back, or if its gone for good, but I'll take whatever I can get! :) So anyway, I'm feeling much better. I just wanted to record this major milestone in my pregnancy, so if, Lord willing in the future, I'm able to get pregnant again, and I'm in my first trimester wondering when the suffering will end, I can read this and remind myself that there is a light at the end of the tunnel! Ha!

Elyse...this is for you! Cravings. Where do I begin. I had cravings before I was pregnant, so I don't know how much of this is the baby, or just me. :) I think my first real craving was for white rice with soy sauce. When I needed it, I needed it RIGHT THEN! Thankfully we had some in the pantry. A few weeks later, Colt and I woke up on a Saturday morning and I rolled over and said, "I NEED some Fruity Pebbles!!!" I really didn't think that I would actually get them, I was just talking, but my sweet husband went to the store and bought me some! What a guy! :) I went through a pickles stage where I ate kosher dill pickles like it was my job. That ended when I had some nasty vomiting incidents after my pickle eating sessions. Next it was turnip greens with vinegar. I still love this. Nothing better than a big bowl of seasoned turnip greens with red wine vinegar! YUM! They're packed with folic acid and good for the baby too! Two restaurants I've been obsessed with are Arigatos and the Columbia. Yes, I know, the baby loves expensive cuisine. Thankfully, I like the soup and salad from Columbia, and I haven't given into temptation with Arigatos yet. One night, Colt was watching TV, and I had rolled over to try to get some sleep before work the next morning. About 15 minutes after Colt thought I had gone to sleep, I just about jumped out of my skin & rolled over, telling Colt I NEEDED Arigatos rice, vegetables, and goodie-goodie sauce. It scared him so bad because he thought I was sleeping or dreaming or something. We both laughed hysterically because he was so startled. As I type, at 12:53am, I have sweet corn mixed with cayenne pepper, and tomatoes in the oven. This will not help my swollen, chapped lips. I don't know if that is because of the baby or not, but my mom said her lips did the same thing when she was pregnant. So, you could say I've had my share of weird cravings. Although I will say, I crave all of these things when I'm not pregnant also. This is to be continued as I still have a long way to go. Thanks for reading!!!

The Last Several Weeks

In this post, I will try to give you a brief overview of the happenings in the first few weeks of this pregnancy. It will be hard to remember details, as I recorded them on my old laptop, and then it broke, so I'm still waiting to retrieve those notes. Here goes...


Week 3: We found out we were pregnant on May 18th, and told our parents the following night. At this time I had no real symptoms, but I noticed my skin was breaking out.

Week 4: We started telling a few of our family members, although it was still strictly under wraps. I still had no symptoms other than feeling like a water balloon! Haha!

Week 5: All of our family (Grandparents, Uncles, Aunts, Cousins) knew at this point. We have such a big family, it was impossible to keep it secret for long. Everyone was thrilled! This week we went on a mini-vacation to Jacksonville for a gig on Friday night, and a day of R & R on Saturday in St. Augustine. We had a great time and I was still feeling pretty good.

Week 6: At this point I was starting to feel a little bit nauseous. Colt had a few gigs in Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, so we went on a road trip. I don't think being on the road helped the nausea. We had a great time in Tennessee visiting my Aunt Heather and Uncle Josh and their kids Hannah and Fischer. The kids affectionately called the baby, "the grain of rice". They thought it was cool that the baby was so small. By the end of this trip, especially driving through Atlanta on Sunday morning, I was feeling really sick. Little did I know this would become an ongoing theme. UGH! Another fun thing this week was our FIRST ULTRASOUND! My mom has a friend who is an ultrasound tech, so she has been giving us ultrasounds for free. We got our first one this week. You couldn't see much, just a tiny baby, the size of a grain of rice, and a yolk sac. We got to "see" the heartbeat, and the ultrasound machine put an audible noise to it, so we could hear it too. It was 130 beats per minute. I literally thought my bladder was going to explode on the table! I'm sure all you experienced pregnant women can relate! My bladder is the big, black blob at the top of this picture...yeah...FULL!

Week 7: HORRIBLE! This week was horrible. Sunday through Wednesday I was sick almost all day. I would sit down at work and literally gag on crackers. It was all I could do to keep myself from throwing up everything in my stomach, although I did that too. By Thursday I felt much better, and it hasn't been that miserable since.

Week 8: Still battling with nausea. Some days are fine, and some days are pretty bad, but still not as bad as week 7. Throwing up almost daily though. Its difficult to tell what are pregnancy cravings and what are normal Aubree cravings, but I did really crave rice one night. On Saturday of this week, I woke Colt up, CRAVING Fruity Pebbles. He ran out and got me some...what a good husband!

Week 9: Still nauseous. This week we went for our first doctors appointment. My appointment was at 2:30pm on June 25th. Interesting side note for the baby...we found out later that Michael Jackson's time of death was around 2:15pm on June 25th. He died while we were on our way to the doctor's office. Anyway, the doctors appointment was fun. I got my blood tests and all the other fun tests done. My doctor was really nice and actually gave us a free mini-ultrasound. We got to see the baby's progression, and hear the heartbeat again. This time it was 178.5 beats per minute! She said that it was a good, strong heartbeat. I was a little worried that it was to fast, but she said with the development of the circulatory system, its to be expected. According to old wives tales, heart rates of 140 beats per minute and below is supposed to be indicative of a boy, and above 140 is supposed to be a girl. We'll know soon enough! We went to Louis Pappas for dinner after the appointment. If you look closely at the picture, you can see its little feet and hands forming!

Week 10: I'm not sure why, but for some reason, I've been really nervous about this pregnancy. I've been very excited about being a parent, but very nervous about the actual pregnancy. Will it go ok, will the baby be healthy, will I do everything I'm supposed to do, what does it mean that this or that symptom seems to be going away, etc. etc. etc. Its a never ending cycle of worry! My mom said its God's way of preparing you for parenthood. Supposedly, the worry doesn't stop after you deliver a healthy baby, and that one day, I will be worrying about my baby, having a baby of their own, like my mom is now. Saying all of that, I when I first got pregnant, I thought by 10 weeks, I would feel much better and more secure about the pregnancy. That didn't happen, although for some reason I felt like I wasn't in the super early stages of pregnancy anymore. Maybe its because I hit double digits in the weeks. I was still pretty nauseated during the beginning of this week, but for some reason on Friday and Saturday, I felt 100% better! I was thinking two things...either there was something wrong with the baby, or I was one of the lucky ones who's nausea was starting to fade around the end of my first trimester. I was wrong on both counts. By Sunday the nausea was back in full force. I think I threw up like 6 times. Too much information I know, but it must be said. I took Monday off of work (only my second sick day since I've been working here). This week-weekend (Wednesday-Sunday) we were dog sitting for my parents, so we hadn't been home all weekend. When we came home Sunday night, Colt was washing clothes and the water heater started leaking. We cleaned it up and didn't think much of it, until I went into the bathroom. My shower, and bathroom floor had standing water. This was true for the hall bathroom also! The guest bathroom was unaffected thank goodness, but it was an add on and on a different system. We had to call a plumber at 1am! He didn't finish until 3:30, and we didn't get in bed until 4!!! My Monday off was much needed!

Week 11: This week I experienced the first case of heartburn in my life. Its kind of funny, I get weekly updates from a website called babycenter.com, and it tells you what to expect week by week. Heartburn was first mentioned as a symptom this week, and low and behold it happens to me! NOT FUN! The really bad heartburn started Wednesday afternoon and left by Friday, but I had mild cases throughout the rest of the week. My doctor's office said I could take Pepcid AC, since the Tums and Pepto Bismol wasn't working. They told me that if the heartburn has started this early, they will most likely have to put me on a prescription. Not an ideal situation, but its necessary. I hope I don't sound like I'm constantly complaining about this pregnancy. Most aspects have been really fun and exciting, but nausea and heartburn aren't fun for anyone! I don't mind dealing with it, because I think the payoff will be pretty cool. :) A really exciting thing that happened this week, is that Colt and Buddy put the crib together! Uncle Josh and Aunt Heather gave us a really beautiful crib that they used for Hannah and Fischer. I love it! I also love the character of a crib that has been in the family. My mom is storing my rocking chair at her house. It was the rocking chair that she used to rock me to sleep. Its got my little teeth marks on the arms, where I used to bite it in my toddler years. I love that! The rest of week 11 was pretty much the same. I still had bouts of severe nausea, but for the most part, it was tolerable.

Week 12: I had been waiting for week 12 for a long time. First off, everyone says, if you can make it to the twelfth week with no problems, you should be fine for the rest of the pregnancy. Obviously this is not a set in stone rule, but I knew it would make me feel a little bit better. Also, I've heard that most women start to feel more "normal" in terms of the nausea and early pregnancy symptoms going away or decreasing significantly. Most women say that there is an increase in energy levels, and the nausea disappears almost overnight. I'm still waiting for this. Haha! I will say that fatigue has not been a complaint for me. I don't know whether its because I'm always exhausted because of my crazy schedule that I didn't notice any difference, or if I just wasn't abnormally tired. Colt will probably disagree with me on this point. He has had to put up with many nights of me falling asleep during our shows that we normally watch, or falling asleep in the car when we go places (which I did all the time before I was pregnant anyway).

I went to my 12 week doctors appointment today, and everything went really well! The baby's heart rate was between 158-160, which is really good. I go back in 4 weeks. I'm going to get another ultrasound week after next! I can't wait to find out the gender!!! They say somewhere between 15-20 weeks they might be able to tell me. We announced the pregnancy on Facebook today as well. Its not that we weren't ecstatic when we found out, we just wanted to make it to 12 weeks before we told anyone outside of family, just in case. We are so glad the secret is out. Thanks again for reading, and check back soon for more posts!