40 weeks belly shot

Just wanted to get my last belly shot up here - should've posted it before the baby announcement, but I couldn't help myself!! This is literally minutes before we left for the hospital, so my water had already broke. It looks kind of square in the photo, hee hee, weird!

39 weeks...

Helllooooo big mama! I didn't think my belly was that much bigger than it was in the last few weeks, but in the pictures it does look bigger! It is hard to tell when it is your own body. But, I do think I am looking pretty chubby everywhere - especially my face, ugh. Only 1 more week! I was still dilated to 1 cm last Friday at my doc appt, but found out that I am 70% effaced. So, at least there is something going on, maybe tomorrow I will have made more progress. I see the doc tomorrow at 8am, so will post an update after that.

I am to the point where I am pretty uncomfortable and cumbersome. Walking is a chore and it hurts all over. My internal organs feel smashed like pancakes and nothing is working right, but I'll just leave it at that. I am pretty ready to not be pregnant anymore! It does get hard at the end, just like they say. I only have a few more things I need to do before this baby can come out. I am waiting until my mom gets here on Monday, and then I will be really ready. I am feeling pretty excited about meeting this little man - but I bounce from excited to scared to denial and back all the time. I am still working - from home today, tomorrow and Monday. If nothing is happening I may show my face in the office next Tues/Wed. I don't want to be seen as a slacker!

I still have a lot of things to blog about, but haven't gotten around to it. Another blog I read reminded me of all the decisions you have to make while pregnant - and there are a few I haven't shared with you that I keep meaning to. I am referring to breastfeeding, diapers, childcare, my work schedule, etc. I will post about this soon, I am tired now and ready for some zzzzzzzzzz. Good night!

36 weeks belly shot

I don't think I look much bigger than a couple weeks ago.

33 weeks, 4 days belly shot

I haven't posted a pic in a while, so here you go! Only 44 days to go and I am getting very excited! We started our childbirth classes on Sunday, very informative. I can't wait to meet this little guy face to face and wish my due date was here already. But, I don't want him to be born early, so I will wait for another month and a half to slooooooooooowwwwwwlly tick by. I am trying to take this one day at a time as it is getting harder and harder to move around, sleep and work with all this baby stuff on my mind and extra weight in my belly I have to carry around. I still have so much to do!!! I wear out really quickly doing anything and need to lie down frequently because my back is still really bad. I think it has made a small improvement as long as I sit in a reclined position with my feet up. But doing anything causes my back to start hurting after a short bit. I am a mess! We went out to dinner on Sat night and that was the last time I am doing that - sitting in a chair eating is the worst possible place for my back. I can't tolerate it for long. 

Yesterday I was leaving work and just coming out of my building when I ran into my fertility doc! It was weird because I couldn't place him right away - seeing him out of context threw me - so I looked at him and he looked at me with a small flicker of recognition and then we passed and I realized who he was. I wish I would have realized sooner so I could have said "Hey Dr. Miller!! Thank you so much for my baby boy!!!" I haven't seen him since the day he did the embryo transfer and made me stand on my head! hee hee, I bet he would have liked to hear that everything is going ok, even though he probably really doesn't remember me.  What a fulfilling, yet busy job he has, giving couples babies they may have never otherwise conceived.  Probably a really stressful job though too to have so much responsibility.

My uterus is showing!!!

I've noticed people looking at my belly out in public.  It's kind of weird - I mean, my uterus is so big now that it is sticking way out and people can see it! hee hee. So, here is a more revealing photo of my belly and me. We took a bunch of photos on the beach in Puerto Rico and I will share some of them with you. However, we lost some of them - long story - but I still have a few to show. I hope you don't mind seeing me in a bathing suit! I just look very round! :-D

Puerto Rico belly shots - 27 weeks

I have lots of belly shots from Puerto Rico to share with you. I will try to share one every day or every couple of days. Here is the first one! We had just had a great dinner at a place called Pamela's on the beach. I look pretty round in this dress, but it is very comfy!

Belly perspective

Here is another perspective on my swelling belly. I took this photo on a whim in Puerto Rico and it is one of my favorites! We were sitting on a park bench in a square in front of Cafe Berlin (just a little restaurant in Old San Juan that bears my maiden name). Berlin will probably be our little man's middle name by the way.

It's amazing how wrapped up in this whole baby thing you can get. Before, I was so wrapped up in getting pregnant and those mostly painful memories have really faded (thank goodness) and been replaced with all the joys and pain of carrying this new life inside me.  However, the feelings of struggling with infertility do not completely go away. I still feel like I've been singled out and can't quite join the crowd of happy pregnant people. There are always these thoughts in my mind of resentment towards other people who seem to have it so easy and take it for granted. And, I told myself over and over how thrilled I would be to get pregnant that any amount of suffering during pregnancy, childbirth and those sleepless nights beyond would never compare to the pain of not knowing if I would ever even be a mother. But, in the midst of this pregnancy, I find myself doing a lot of complaining about how much my back hurts or how many times I wake up at night to go to the bathroom or to move (because my back hurts!). Being pregnant is difficult, there is no doubt about it. It must be this way to prepare you for what is to come - being a mother. But, I've already suffered dammit! Don't get me wrong, I am still enjoying being pregnant. When he kicks me after I sing him a song, or rub some little part of him sticking out, my heart just swells with joy! I love looking at my belly and knowing that I am growing this life inside me. It is a wonderful feeling too to have a piece of my husband growing inside me because I love him so much! 

I don't want to say that my pregnancy is any more special than anyone else's, but it sure is special to me! This is the biggest blessing of my life and I am so looking forward to more backaches, sleepless nights, crying babies, and all the other joys and pains of motherhood.

Easter belly - late I know!

I know I owe you some belly pics! This first one is from Easter Sunday - so 25 weeks, 4 days. The second one is just a week later at 26 weeks, 3 days. I have a lot of great belly photos from our trip to Puerto Rico and promise to share some of the good ones soon!

22 weeks, 4 days belly pic

Wow, what a difference a few weeks makes! I am starting to look kind of fat in the face too. Finally, my belly has a nice roundness to it. It is much more fun to actually look pregnant, I must say!

19 weeks, 3 days

Here is a clothed pic of my belly. Granted, we just ate dinner for Rudy's birthday, so I probably look a little bigger than normal. You can see a roundness to my abdomen that I hope looks like a prego girl and not just a girl who ate too much cake. Cuz, I have eaten too much cake and other stuff. ;) I am calling it the airline pillow right now. I hope it starts looking like a basketball soon! I will take a naked belly photo soon...

17 weeks belly shot

I will be 17 weeks tomorrow and here's how I look! Not much of a belly to speak of. I just look a little chubby and thick in the waist. I have only gained about 6 or 7 pounds so far, so there must be some baby in there, not just flab! I had a pic from 10 weeks and it doesn't really look much different than this, weird. I guess I am just slow to show. I thought for sure I would have a big belly by now, but gals, you just don't show as quickly as you think when you are pregnant for the first time! I am wearing maternity clothes now because my regular clothes are just too tight and uncomfortable. I did some shopping recently and bought a bunch of stuff - almost all of it on sale! Now is a good time to shop, I got some great deals and some really cute clothes!

If you look really close at my left eye (the eye on the right in the pic), it looks pink. I have unfortunately managed to contract a new autoimmune disorder in my eye called iritis. Lucky me! It was soooooooooooo severely painful, I have not felt pain this bad before. I was basically blinded the last couple days - I couldn't open my eyes if there were any lights on or if it was daytime without getting a sharp pain in my eye sort of like being hit in the face with a baseball bat. Ouch, I am not kidding, it was pretty bad. And worse during the night, I would wake up with this throbbing, pounding horrible pain behind my eye. All I could do was put ice on it to make the pain subside. Well, thank goodness the opthalmologist figured out what it was and gave me the right steroid eye drops, it feels so much better today, but is still red as you can see. It can take up to 8 weeks to completely go away. I hope it doesn't last that long, but as long as I can see and go to work, I will get by. My vision is blurry in that eye which is really annoying. Being blind really is tough. I was so bored, there is literally nothing to do other than listen to the tv or talk to other people and I just layed in bed and did nothing! It is hard to get around the house when you are not used to not seeing. I just stayed in bed and thank goodness Rudy stayed home yesterday to take care of me. Well, pray for my eye to heal quickly so I can stop taking these eye drops, they are not technically approved for during pregnancy. But, I had no choice. Go blind in my left eye, or get better and have a very remote chance of something happening to the baby. This is a totally different topic, and I have already made my choice, but it was not easy. I just pray I don't have to take these drops for much longer.

Well, 2 more weeks and we get to find out the sex of the baby!! We are going to start buying the baby furniture soon. I can't wait to share all the baby room decorating with you!

Belly photo #1: 4 weeks, 3 days

So this is me right after we found out we were pregnant. I am going to try to take pics every few weeks, or once a month or so to show the belly progress! I will take another photo this weekend. I have been putting off posting this, so here it is in all my chubby glory. I am a little fatter than I wish I was when I got pregnant, but oh well, what can you do? My ovaries are the size of lemons here people! I can't wait to see if I look any more pregnant in my next photo, right now, I just look a little fatter.