We have a due date!

Today we had our second prenatal visit. During the visit we had our first ultrasound. It was AMAZING!!!! The baby moved, it did a little shimmi-shake. VERY COOL! We also got to hear it's heartbeat. Its heart was beating at 179 beats per minute. Our baby is 2.1 cm long, which puts us at a little over 8.5 weeks. The ultrasound technician said that on thursday I will be 9 weeks. She set our "official" due date as August 6th. Below you will see our pictures. They do this amazing 3D thing now. That one is the one at the bottom. It was a better picture in person, but the pictures that they gave us are pretty amazing too!

Telling Peggy and Rick

We drove from Muskegon, MI to Danville, IL on the 28th for Christmas at Peggy's house.   It took way less time than it took to get to Muskegon because we had great weather!   We arrived in enough time to get cute before all of Adam's Uncles and Aunts showed up.   Adam's mom Peg, Rick, Grandma Blue, Kelly, Aadam, Uncle Kerry, Aunt Vicki, Uncle Ron, Aunt Nancy, Ashlyn, Nassim, Tyler, Brittany and Madeline were all there.   We were waiting until after presents again to tell Peggy.  We had dinner first, and then exchanged presents.   It was nice this time to have Kelly know the secret to keep too.   It made it a little easier to be patient.   Then, Adam's Uncle Kerry had a game to play.   He gave all of the "kids" a stash of money, and he auctioned off the overstock from his company.  The goal of the game was to get the biggest value of stuff while spending the least amount of money.  We had to give the money back by the end of the game, so it was worth your while to spend it all.   It was really hard to be patient during the game, and after about an hour everyone decided to take a break.   At this point, Adam said, "Hold on, we have one more present."  And he ran back to the bedroom to grab Peggy's present.   He gave it to her, and she was totally confused about why we were giving her an empty picture frame.   Adam and I said, "read it out loud."  Then she figured out that it was engraved.   She read it and it took a minute to sink in.  Then she said, "Are you telling me that you're pregnant?"   Then we said yes, and she got very excited and everyone in the room got it.   Rick was grinning from ear to ear.   It was very cool.   We told Peggy that she would have a picture to put in her frame on Tuesday, because we will be having our first ultrasound.   

Telling Stew

We wanted to tell Adam's parents in person too.   We drove up to Muskegon yesterday.   Thankfully there was an ice storm in the morning and it only took us 7 hours!   It took Kelly and Aadam 7 and a half from Danville.... crazy!   We waited for Adam's step-sister Emily to get there from Kansas.   She was supposed to arrive at midnight on the 26th.   Her plane was delayed for an hour, then it was cancelled.   The next morning she spent about 2 hours stuck on the plane waiting to take off.... eventually they let everyone off of the plane, and decided to delay for a few hours.   Eventually they just cancelled it altogether.   It was frustrating because we were really hoping that everyone would be there.   When we figured out that she was not going to be able to make it, we went ahead and exchanged presents with everyone who was there.   Stew, Carla, Regina, Kelly, Aadam, Murphy (Kelly and Aadam's dog), Katie and Jacob were all there.   At the end, Aadam had to leave to take Murphy out to go potty.   While he was gone Adam said,  "Hold on, we have one more present for you."   He gave Stew the envelope in the picture.   Everyone was really excited!   Kelly cried, and Stew's eyes even got a little wet.   It was pretty cool.   Then Aadam came in and was totally confused.   When he left everyone was calm, when he came back in everyone was up and obviously excited.   Stew gave Aadam the card, and he looked at it for a good minute or too.   He was totally confused about what the big deal was.   It was very cute when he figured it out because his eyes got huge and his mouth popped open.   Overall it was a pretty great time!   Congrats Grandpa Stew!

Telling Bill and Karen

Adam made me keep a secret from my mom for a whole week!!!! He's so mean. He wanted to wait until we got the blood test results back. We were supposed to have them on wednesday.... the nurse left me a message while I was at work on Thursday. Which did me absolutely NO GOOD.... finally I got a hold of someone and they confirmed that I am indeed pregnant! We wanted to do something cute to tell mom and dad, so we waited until we could find something good to do.... we went shopping and found an adorable pillow for mom. It says, "Great Moms get promoted to Grandma." Dad was a little harder. We wanted to give him plans for a bassinet (is that how you spell it) or a rocking chair. There was a snow storm, so we did not want to drive far away. We ended up at Barnes and Noble, and found a book that included how to make a rocking chair. I "wrapped" the presents in gift bags on the way home, and we were so excited to finally tell mom and dad. They weren't home. Grr! We had to wait like an hour for them to get home. Then, we told them that we had early presents for them. Mom told me that they wouldn't open them earlier because it wasn't Christmas yet. Eventually we convinced them, and dad opened his present. He had no idea why we gave him a book about chair-making. Then mom opened her present. And she said, "does this mean.... I thought you might be...." Then she squealed, "how exciting is that!" about a million times in the next hour. We told her it was a secret for now, but then agreed that we should call Aunt Chris in Washington to tell her too. Later, we went over to tell Bo and Trish. Bo and Adam were playing Rock Band or Guitar Hero. Trish asked what was going on, and I was telling her a bunch of mundane stuff and then casually mentioned that we were having a baby. Only at that exact moment the song had gotten REALLY loud, and no one but Adam noticed what I had said. It was pretty funny, so I had to tell them again. Bo and Trish were really excited and we celebrated by going out to sushi. (I only ate the cooked stuff) Overall it was a pretty awesome day!

First Doctor's Appointment

Today was our first doctor's appointment and I worked from home today so I could go. The office was very modern and comfortable. The practice is run by one Ob/Gyn and his troupe of young, all-female Nurse Practitioner/Midwives.

During Jen's orientation with the nurse, they asked a ton of questions to obtain her complete medical history. One of the questions was, "Have you traveled outside the country in the last year?" Jen immediately answered "No." I had to interrupt and say "Uhhh....except for Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, and Egypt." (We went on a last hurrah vacation over this summer.) I had a pretty good time teasing Jen about that one.

Jen had to give blood to confirm the pregnancy and we scheduled our next appointment for a couple of weeks later.