Me and my BELLY :)

I made my appointment today for the...dah...dah...dah.....ULTRASOUND! April 10th is the BIG DAY! Apparently your bladder has to be full to execute an effective ultrasound. You can imagine my surprise when the nurse told me that I have to drink 32 ounces of water in 1 ½ hours before my appointment. Are you kidding me…that is SO much water. And I’m not supposed to go to the bathroom during that time. How can they do this to pregnant women?!?! I’ll try my best, but I didn’t make any promises. I guess it’s a small price to pay for the opportunity to make sure that our baby has 10 fingers and 10 toes and that everything looks healthy!

We won't be finding out the boy/girl news that day because we have very special plan. Since our ongoing desire has been to keep our families in the loop and incorporate them as a big part of this adventure (although it be from a distance...2000 miles), we've decided to hold off on the big surprise and find out at the same time as our parents and siblings if we're having a boy or girl...how can we do that in 2 different time zones you ask?? :) Here's the plan:

We're going to ask the ultrasound technician to write down the sex of the baby, put it in an envelope, and not let us see it. Then we're going to go to the baby section at a local store and get 3 pink and 3 blue "somethings", ask a clerk there to look in the envelope and wrap the appropriate colored items in 3 separate packages (while we go browse for baby gear that we'll soon be purchasing). We'll come back once the packages are wrapped still not knowing what our baby will be. Then the plan is to ship off the boxes...one to my family, one to Justin's family, and keep one for ourselves. Once they've all received their "box of joy" we'll open them all at once while sharing the experience on speaker phone. Not quite the same as "in person" but we still think it will be something to remember.

I went out last night to try to find some pants that will sustain my changing body:) I didn't have much success...although I did find some adorable stretchy shirts that fit my ever growing belly. It's becoming noticeable…probably more so to me than anyone else, but I’m getting bigger none-the-less...and it’s SO exciting.

I think I felt a little baby flutter last week. It felt like a tickle from inside my stomach! From what I’ve been reading, this is about the time I should be starting to feel movement. It’s so amazing!

I feel absolutely great this week. A little tired sometimes, but overall I have tons of energy. I'm finally starting to get some regular exercise again! This is great news since I have and EXTREME sweet tooth lately! I can't get enough chocolate or anything in the "dessert" category :)