17 Weeks

16 Weeks (Four months)

As the title says, I am now 17 weeks pregnant, or just a little over four months. Our baby is the size of an onion! I had an appointment this past week and our little one has a nice strong heartbeat. More exciting, I now get to set up my 20 week (halfway!) appointment, where they will do an in-depth ultrasound to check our baby's anatomy and make sure everything looks right. I'm so excited to see our baby again!

Also, I felt my first movement this weekend! We were driving home from Logan and I felt a funny little feeling from the inside, like our baby was shifting position and her body was rubbing against my tummy. Then, later that night, I felt a series of distinct little pokes, always in sets of two, like one foot, then the other. On Sunday I felt the same pokes in the same part of my tummy, which just confirmed it for me. It's so exciting to have this tangible proof of our little girl!

It's A Girl!!!

Yesterday Trevor and I went to a private ultrasound place to find out the gender of our baby. The ultrasound technician took one look at her face and said, "I bet it's a girl. Look at that cute little nose." Sure enough, when he went to check between her legs, there was a whole lot of nothing! I was ecstatic, grinning a mile wide throughout the whole ultrasound. I had begun to feel convinced that we were going to have a boy, so this was a nice little shock! At the beginning of the ultrasound, I think she was sleeping. She had her arms over her face and looked so cozy. But then the ultrasound tech nudged her so that she would roll over onto her side and she wasn't very pleased with that, because she started kicking at me. (It was cool to see, because it's still too early for me to actually feel her movements.)

After the ultrasound we got to tell our parents and siblings, and everyone was so excited for us. My sister-in-law, Lisa, is also having a little girl, so they'll be little girl cousins. Trevor's dad responded to the news by saying, "Looks like we'll be having princess parties."

I'm so thrilled to be having a girl. I grew up with mostly all boys, so I was really hoping for a daughter. Trevor had been hoping for a boy, but when I saw him smiling during the ultrasound, I knew he would be just fine with a little girl. We're pretty sure that we're going to name her Alia (pronounced AW-lee-uh), and the funny thing is, we'd decided on that name for a girl early on, but we were having a really hard time coming up with a boy name...and now we know why. We didn't need it!

The Magical 12 Week Mark

12 Weeks (three months)

They say that once you reach the 12 week mark, your risk for miscarriage drops to less than 2%, which kind of makes it the magical week, so needless to say, I'm thrilled to be here! I had my 12 week appointment today and got to hear my baby's heart beat. It was such a neat experience! The heart beat was about 160-170 beats per minute, which is nice and strong.

Sadly I didn't get an ultrasound. My OB office doesn't do an ultrasound until 20 weeks, which is still two months away. That's a long time to have to wait to see my baby! (I had an ultrasound at 6 weeks just to make sure everything was okay, but the baby didn't really look anything like a baby at that point, so it's not the same.) So...there's this private ultrasound place near where I live and they'll even tell you the gender starting at 15 weeks, but it'll cost $55. Fortunately, I hung on to most of the money I got for my birthday, so I'll call it a belated birthday present and won't even feel bad for spending some money to see my little one. Plus, that means that I can find out if my baby is a boy or a girl in about two and half weeks! That's not NEARLY as bad as having to wait another two months.

Anyway, here's my three month belly shot (I decided to scrap the "continuous outfit" thing because I now have some maternity clothing and it's much cuter than gray on gray). I'm so excited to actually have a baby bump now! It started sometime last week, but now it's definitely here (I actually had to have my doctor confirm it for me today because I hardly believed it myself). I know a lot of first time moms don't start showing until around five months, but then again, I have a ridiculously short torso so I'm not surprised.

We're Having a Baby!

Yep, that's right. Baby Koch will be due March 19th, and I'm 10 weeks along (or two and half months). I found out I was pregnant while Trevor was on a trip to the Tetons near Yellowstone with the boy scouts, so I had to sit on the secret for three days while I waited for him to come home. It was torture! Since his birthday was a few days after he got home, I decided to give him an early birthday present...

Needless to say, he was more nervous than excited at first, but it's definitely growing on him now. We had our first prenatal visit this past Wednesday and everything is looking good. They tried to listen for the heartbeat, but couldn't find it, so they pulled out a little handheld ultrasound machine (didn't even know they had such things!) and we got to see out little baby with that beautiful flickering heartbeat. I have my twelve week appointment on September 8th, and hopefully they'll do a more thorough ultrasound at that point.

Five weeks (A little over one month)

So, Baby Koch is about the size of a kumquat right now (Trevor thought I was talking gibberish when I said that). His or her arms, legs, feet, and hands are developed as well as all the major organs. Now it's just a matter of getting bigger! As for me, I've been very fortunate. No morning sickness so far, and I'm already almost done with the first trimester! I have been very tired though. In fact, I didn't have work today so I just slept until 11:00am. It was great. I've decided to do a picture each month to document my growing belly. And even though there isn't much of a baby bump yet, I have one for month one and two (the bulge in the picture is mostly my growing uterus (which is now the size of grapefruit!) as well as some bloating, water retention, and all that other fun pregnancy stuff).

*Side note: I am fully aware that gray with gray is just poor fashion sense, but these are the only pants and shirt that I had there were stretchy enough to last all nine months (so that the clothes stays continuous). Also, you see that my hair has grown a little! ;)

Nine weeks (a little over two months)

We will probably get to find out the gender sometime in October, which seems like a looooong time from now. I'm hoping for a little girl, and Trevor's hoping for a little boy, but we'll both be very happy no matter what, as long as he/she is healthy. Trevor's sister, Lisa, is also pregnant right now, and she is two months ahead of me, so she'll be finding out the gender soon. These little cousins are going to be so close! As for other cousins, this baby will have Jaxon (Lisa's 2 year old boy) and Lily (my brother Jake's 5 month old girl).

Well, only 210 days left to go!

Wedding Video Highlights

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, this is the highlight of our wedding video, courtesy of the insanely talented Christopher Koch.


Go check out his company Digital Memorys - He does an incredible job!

I have a job!

Woohoo! After searching for a job all summer, I learned about the job, interviewed, and got hired within two days! The principal said that after I interviewed, he told the other ladies, "Don't let her get away!" :)

So here's the job. I'm a teacher's aide for a fifth grade class and sixth grade class, where I will be working in small groups with kids who need special attention. Now here's the cool part: there's also an opportunity to advance next month and actually become the fifth grade classroom teacher! The job hasn't been posted yet, so I still have to apply and all that jazz, but I'm just ecstatic! After feeling resigned to a job at McDonald's, this is like a dream come true! The school is on a year-round schedule, so I actually begin work next Tuesday!

My Husband...AKA "Mr. Clean"

Hallelujah! My dear husband has been working his tail end off all day to get things organized and put away! So after all that was done, I was able to vacuum, and now our apartment looks AMAZING! Therefore, I must take back what I said in my last post (about us not getting our act together until it was time to move again) because, boy was I wrong! Trevor is unstoppable! The great thing is, now that it's all clean and organized, it doesn't feel nearly as small anymore. We're truly blessed to have such a nice place to live. :)