First Trimester...check!

We've made it through the first trimester, 14 weeks!  A third of the pregnancy done.  I can't believe it...it has gone by so fast!  We had an appointment today with the OB and she said that everything looks great so far!  My blood pressure is normal and the baby's heartbeat was 150...perfect.  She said that the baby was moving too because we could hear a "thump" when it hit where the doppler was listening for the heartbeat.  So freaking amazing :)  The baby is about the size of a lemon now, 3-1/2 inches or so. The baby is able to make fists and move the arms and legs now. Also, the baby may be able to suck his or her thumb!  We talked a little bit about what is coming in the next few months and what we want out of the pregnancy and birth.  My OB practice is very open to making things as natural as possible, which is my plan, but seeing as I work in a NICU and completely understand all that can go wrong I am totally flexible about changing my plan as needed for the safety of the baby.  She recommended I look into the Bradley Method or Hypnobirthing but we'll talk more about that later.  In this first trimester I only gained about 1-2 pounds, which is great because I was already overweight and I am not supposed to gain more than 10-15 pounds through the whole pregnancy.  So now that I am feeling better and there is less exhaustion I am supposed to start exercising.  She recommended swimming.  Shawn is super excited about that!

Now that we are 14 weeks in and the first trimester is over, I thought I would look back at how far we've come.  During this first trimester I have been extremely reluctant to believe the pregnancy and accept that this is finally really happening for us.  Until I saw the ultrasound at 12 weeks that really looked like a baby I still don't think I was 100% convinced there was really a baby growing in there!  I told myself before the pregnancy that after all we went through to make it happen I would never complain about pregnancy...and I haven't.  I have a friend at work who had infertility trouble in her past as well and whenever she would ask me how I was feeling and I would say fine she would ask again...how are you really feeling?  She was afraid I was doing exactly what I was doing, but in reality I didn't have a bad first trimester.  Sure, there was the underlying nausea that never went away, but it could have been much worse.  There was the heartburn that would pop up at totally inconvenient and random times, but it could have been worse.  I never had any food aversions and weird cravings (I think the current pickle craving is totally normal!).  Really, the exhaustion was the worst part and I think I will get a few months of energy now so again I won't complain!  I am still absolutely overjoyed that Shawn and I will finally have the opportunity to have a child of our own that we can love the way we already love Logan.

Our next doctor visit is in 6 weeks for the anatomy ultrasound and hopefully to find out the sex!  Several people have tried to convince us to be surprised, but as you all know, I don't do surprises well ;)  We already have our boy and girl names picked out (we have for probably 2 years already, just waiting for the baby) so in 6 weeks we'll all find out what will be coming!!  As Shawn says, in 6 weeks we'll know it we're getting a little Micheal Phelps or Missy Franklin :)