More ultrasound pics and a few belly shots too...

OK so it's been about a month since I've posted anything but life has been pretty mellow these days. I have been feeling great! I have more energy, am no longer feeling sick, etc... Basically I don't even really feel pregnant except for the occasional heartburn and lower back ache, neither of which are even all that bad! They're more annoying than anything haha. Anyways, I hit my halfway mark on August 26th and figured it was time I started to post regular belly pictures. We also had another ultrasound when I was 21 weeks. (I'm 23 weeks now) Those are always fun!

A profile shot at 21 weeks

The Dr. confirmed that we are having a little girl!! We are thrilled :)

 Although we can't complain about free health care compliments of the military, I still think it's lame that they only send you home with a couple of profile shots. That's it! The technician took way more photos than that. Sadly this is all I get to share...sorry guys!

Now it's time for the belly pics. As my sister-in-law put it, "We've seen the baby's profile, now we want to see how mom is 'shaping' up." haha So here is what I look like today at 23 weeks. Drum roll please........

I've really popped out! I can't imagine how big I'll be when my due date arrives...yikes!

Just kidding!! I would die if I was already that big! Let's hope I never have to carry multiples *knock on wood* I don't know if I could handle that haha. Anyways here are a couple of real belly pics :)

19 weeks 2 days

22 weeks 3 days (5 months along)

I don't really see a difference between my 19 wk shot and my 22 wk shot. What do you think?? I have noticed that my belly has gotten a lot firmer in the three weeks between shots. Thankfully I have not had to wear maternity pants yet. I have just gone up a jean size. My guess is that I'll wake up one morning and all of a sudden be huge!! haha We'll see...I'll keep posting pics every couple of weeks.

Recent Happenings....

Ok, so it's been a super long time since I've posted. (Sorry about that!) I figured it was time I gave everyone an update on life in the Wehrli house. Tyler and I have been really busy with work and preparing for our upcoming vacation. On top of that we've been pre-approved for a home loan and have been looking for a 3 bedroom home or condo. Nothing has popped up yet but we're not in too much of a hurry and I'm confident (no matter what happens) that everything will work out in the end.

On July 24th, we flew down to Idaho, Wyoming, & Montana for an 11 day family vacation. We spent our days visiting with good friends, family, eating great food, and enjoying the significantly warmer weather. It was awesome!! I had so much fun. Tyler and I seriously considered just not getting back on our plane. *Sigh* Too bad life doesn't stop and we both have jobs to get back to. The only possible downside to our trip was a horrible sunburn I got on the last day of our trip BUT it was totally worth it! lol :)

During our short time in Montana I was able to get a free ultrasound compliments of my wonderful father-in-law. He runs the imaging department at the hospital in Whitefish, MT so he was able to do one for us. Tyler's parents, his best friend (He made a last minute road trip to MT to see us) and his two youngest siblings were able to be there with us. It was awesome to be able to share that with them...however, it was definitely a different experience having an audience during an ultrasound! haha I was 16wks and 3 days when I had the ultrasound done. It's always great to see my little baby. And to see it take more of a human shape vs. a blob hit home a little bit. Reality hit and it made my pregnancy feel real. It was perfect.

Also....we were able to find out the gender of our baby!!! That's right!! It was really exciting. Take a look at some of the photos below and see if you can tell for yourself :)

Profile view

Now the baby is laying on it's tummy with it's head on the opposite side! lol

Baby re-adjusted yet again and is on it's back with it's arms above it's head

Another profile...can you see the umbilical cord?

The grey spot in the middle is our baby's tiny little heart <3

So....who was able to tell?!? Ok, I wouldn't have been able to tell either based on the photos haha BUT that's why I don't decipher ultrasound photos for a living. Thanks to my father-in-law's skillful eye we are pretty confident that we are having a little GIRL!!!! I am so excited!! I was expecting a boy but really wanted a girl. Tyler was also excited with the result. Our little girl was moving all over the place and kept her legs tucked up to her chest with her ankles crossed the entire time! lol So even though my father-in-law wasn't able to get a clear view of the "girl parts" developing (although he did see something he thought could of been girl parts but wasn't sure) he definitely didn't see any "boy parts" dangling between the legs either. He was very confident that it is a girl. So that's been the highlight of our week so far.

Other than that bit of excitement, my pregnancy has been pretty uneventful lately...thank goodness! haha The little morning sickness I did have is basically nonexistent and my energy levels are starting to pick up again. Hopefully I'll have more pics of our beautiful little girl in a couple of weeks! :)

Will Power Wasn't Enough :(

So up until now (9 wks 3 days) I have not thrown up at all. And since I HATE throwing up more than anything else in this world...except for maybe spiders...I was bound and determined not to thrown up at all during this pregnancy. I was certain I would the that rare lucky women who would skip that phase all together. I've gotten really nauseous several different times but each time I was able to conquer my gag reflex. This morning, I finally lost that battle...THREE times!!! UGH! Talk about a miserable morning. I woke up at 2 am and went straight to the bathroom. This happened again at around 5am. So I called in sick to work because there was no way I would be able to take care of 8 little babies feeling the way I do right now. Then around 6am I had to drive Tyler to work (He left his ID there and couldn't get on base without it lol) I got up, got dressed, grabbed my shoes, and right as I was about to head out the door...Tyler was already waiting in the car....I made an emergency U-turn and again had a visit with the bathroom. It's horrible!! I want to ground my kid for a month and he/she isn't even born yet! haha I think I'm doing alright now, although I'm scared to eat anything other than chicken broth and saltine crackers. Hopefully this won't last more than a few weeks!! I don't know how my mother did this 6 times...


On a brighter note: Me and Tyler celebrated our 1 yr anniversary yesterday! It was wonderful :) I am grateful this morning sickness waited until after to make it's grand appearance. Otherwise I would not have enjoyed it nearly as much. I love you Tyler!

We Have a Heartbeat!

I went in for another ultrasound today. They've been monitoring me pretty closely the last few weeks after our possible miscarriage scare. My hormone levels have been rising but not as quickly as they would have liked so they have been wanting to see a heartbeat. I went in last week and only saw the yolk sac...no baby. Today, about a week later, the change was amazing! As soon as she started the ultrasound there was baby! :) Everything looks great. The heart was beating at 155bpm and the baby measured at 12.1mm long. They gave me my due date and told me for sure how far along I am. Up until now they couldn't give me a definite answer due to the slow progress BUT I am 7 weeks 6 days along and we should be meeting our sweet baby sometime around January 13th 2012. As for the "Threatened Miscarriage" we were told now that we can hear a heartbeat I have a 95% chance of carrying our baby to term. The appointment couldn't have gone better! We are SO thrilled that everything is on track and that baby is healthy. We really are blessed! This was an answer to our prayers and an example to me that our Father in Heaven really does look out for us.

Here's our lil Peanut <3

Here's the heartbeat. It was so awesome to be able to hear it!

The Waiting Game

Over the past week and a half I have been spotting quite a bit. At first I wasn't too concerned because I know that spotting is not uncommon and that it often means nothing. But as the week went on I was growing more and more concerned. Tyler tried to stay calm about the whole thing (he did pretty good too!) but I could tell he was worried too. With this being our first pregnancy and neither one of us knows much about what is considered "normal", it didn't take much to raise concerns. I'm the type of person who HATES not knowing. Wondering makes things worse for me. I had no clue if this was just normal pregnancy stuff or if I might be having a miscarriage. I finally decided to go to the ER on Thursday after work. I didn't want to freak out and be this overly worried first time mother but at the same time I just felt off.

After almost 4 hours in the ER, giving blood and urine samples, a pap smear, and several ultrasounds, the doctor finally told us what was going on. According to the ultrasounds there is a pregnancy in my uterus (Good!) however, there was quite a bit of blood under the placenta (not good). She also said that my blood test showed that my HCG (or pregnancy hormone) wasn't rising like it should. In a normal pregnancy that hormone should double every 48 hrs. The Women's health Clinic on base had me get normal labs done on Tuesday in order to schedule my first OB appointment. On Tuesday my HCG level was around 9,000. On Thursday it should have doubled and been around 18,000, but instead it was only at around 14,000 (also not good).

So what does this all mean? Well, the doctor called it a "Threatened Miscarriage." (Could they have chosen a scarier name?! Geez!)  Basically it means that it is extremely likely that I will have a miscarriage. She told me what I should expect over the next couple of days should I have a miscarriage, things to watch out for, ect... She also said that she has seen women with this type of condition go on to have a normal pregnancy. Since my hormone levels were rising, I now need to go in for more blood tests every two days or so to track my HCG levels and see how the pregnancy is progressing. Although it didn't rise like it should have the last time, it did rise over 50% so that is a good sign. I need to go back in today and get more blood drawn.

Immediately after leaving the ER we went to my parent's house so that my dad and Tyler could give me a blessing. Let me just say right now how grateful I am for the Priesthood! It has been such a blessing in my life. I am very lucky to have a husband worthy to hold and exercise his priesthood authority. I couldn't imagine going through life without that influence. I am grateful for wonderful parents who raised me in the gospel. They are amazing examples to me and I love them very much! We hope and pray that the pregnancy continues to progress and I can continue to carry our baby to term. But for now we just have to wait and see what happens.

...And Then There Were Three!

That's right folks! Tyler and I are expecting our first child!! We are THRILLED! It's still very early in my pregnancy so thankfully I haven't been too sick - just really really tired! I feel like I have Mono all over again. But I'll take exhaustion over throwing up any day! *Knock on wood* I'm seriously hoping my morning sickness won't be too bad. Throwing up has to be one of the worst feelings in the world. But anything for my kid right? ;)

The first test I took was the type that had the lines: one for "Not Pregnant" and two for "Pregnant". I don't know about you but for someone who's wanting a definite answer this whole line business can be very misleading! The first time one of the lines was so faint I wasn't sure if it counted as a line or not. I retested again later that night and, although one of the lines was still really faint, there was no mistaking the results. Then, because I wanted to see it actually say "Pregnant", I took a digital one....I definitely prefer digital vs. the lines. No confusion with a digital readout. haha :)

This is a bad picture but there is definitely TWO lines :)

The digital test I took the next day

There's no mistake here: I'm pregnant!! :D

With me being pregnant and all, I figured now would be a good time to (finally) jump into the blogging world. I like to follow other people's blogs and have been told numerous times to start my own...but I've never had much interest. However, with a lot of our family living out of state I decided a blog would be the best way to keep everyone informed of the baby's progress. Hopefully I won't be too busy and will be able to keep this updated.