We're Having a BOY!!!!

So it's been a week and a half since the big reveal and we have been getting very excited about our baby boy! The party was a huge success and was everything I had hoped it would be.

So I should start at the beginning - On Valentine's Day we headed to Hope Pregnancy Center to find out if we were having a baby boy or baby girl. We have both felt pretty sure that our baby was a boy from the beginning but I was also kind of thinking that maybe we would both leave giddy and excited and shocked that we were having a girl. I've heard both ways - parents who were "sure" and were right and people who were "sure" and were wrong.

So we get inside the ultrasound room and our technician Janet was the sweetest person you've ever met.  She quickly got started and there was our baby! It was the best feeling in the world to be looking at that screen. Sure - we'd seen the little peanut at 10 weeks and heard the heartbeat at about 14 weeks but now we were seeing hands and feet and a healthy spine and then there it was - unmistakable proof that our baby was indeed a boy. Brandon had decided only moments before that he wanted to go ahead and find out and when she said "Can you tell what you're looking at?" Brandon piped up real quick and said "We're having a boy?" She said that she thought so and then we continued to check out our little man from every possible angle. By the end she said that she couldn't be 100% sure but that she would also be surprised if it was a girl so I was pretty happy with her confidence! My favorite part was when she would talk to him and say "hello sweetie" and it was almost like he would look straight at us. Sometimes I get sad cause I really don't feel much of anything and everything I do feel I question so seeing him wiggling around was really reassuring.

So that began our 24 hours of knowing we were having a boy and not telling anyone. It was Valentine's Day so we ran a few errands and then ended up at our favorite restaurant Cafe Portofino for a delicious dinner and some quality conversation.  Then we headed home so I could clean the house and start my work on the cupcakes. Brandon hadn't really been feeling well so he crashed pretty early.

The cupcakes were pretty fun to make but they were very time consuming, and then I was worried that everyone would see the blue I tried to put in the middle because on a lot of them - the blue rose up to the top. I tried to conceal it with the icing but gave up on icing all of them about half way through because it was late and I knew I had to get up for school. I also knew I'd have a little bit of time to finish things before anyone came over on Friday.

Then Friday was here - the day of the big reveal! Many of the teachers at school said they could just look at me and tell it was a boy because of how much I was smiling. But I kept thinking - what if it was a girl?? I would be smiling so big for that too?? But anyways, most said they thought they knew - but I kept it in pretty well.

Prior to the party, we had a few slip ups with our sisters and my best friend. Brandon slipped up to Jamie and called him a "he" and I slipped up with Heidi when I was telling her I put blue in the cupcakes and Heidi slipped and told Katie when she said she was mad that she was wearing the wrong color (and she was wearing pink)

But other than that - we kept it together. I was pretty proud of myself for not telling my mom. I don't think I gave a thing away.

Finally 7:00 rolled around and our small cozy home was filled almost to overflow. I was a little nervous that we had invited about 40 people but it turned out to be just right. People stood up and talked or moved around and it was nice to see our house full of chatter and laughter and the people we loved. We also enjoyed getting to show of our house since many people hadn't seen the finished product!

The decorations ended up looking wonderful - much thanks to Joy, Hollie, Megan and Heidi for helping me get things together and bringing desserts!! We took some pictures and ate some desserts (not the cupcakes) and then when 7:30 rolled around we all couldn't take it much longer. We passed out cupcakes and everyone took a bite at the same time.  Such fun! Then all my sweet girlfriends screamed in excitement and there it was - we are having a boy!

My friend Joy said "we should do this for all things. Put a surprise in a cupcake and celebrate with friends." It really was so much fun!

Afterwards my sister gave us a present packed with boy stuff. She had bought both a girl and boy goodie bag of clothes and it was the sweetest thing! I pretty much pull out all the cute little outfits every day and imagine our son in them.

Here are a few pictures that Heidi took that captured one of the most fun nights I can remember!!

Boy or Girl?

So Thursday is the big day! I am so excited to find out. A while back, I started looking at how early  you can determine the gender and most people said the earliest was 16 weeks, so as I started to look at the calendar, I thought "what could be a better Valentine's date than finding out if we are having a son or daughter?" So, since I will be exactly 17 weeks, I'm hoping it will be successful! We are going to Hope Pregnancy Center because I can't bear the wait until March 4th to find out. I've had some teacher friends who have had great experiences there and the resource is there so why not? 

So, this Thursday at 3:30 we will get a peek at our sweet baby (which we haven't seen in almost 2 months!) and hopefully I will find out if we are having a girl or boy. Brandon has decided that he wants the surprise of finding out with all our family and friends, so I will be left to bear the secret alone for an entire 27 hours! I'm kinda excited about being the ONLY one who knows for a little bit, although I can't believe Brandon is choosing to wait. Lots of people have encouraged me to wait too - just to let the technician write it on a piece of paper - but I want to see for myself and let her point out all the little things that prove it.  

I'm a little nervous that they won't be able to tell. I'm still undecided on what to do if that happens - just go with their best guess? or tell everyone at our party that we still don't know and we'll have the reveal party part 2 in a few weeks?? I'm leaning towards telling the technician to take their best guess and we'll just go with it.

Thursday night will be spent on a traditional date out with my husband - maybe dinner and sweet frog? and then we will come back home so I can bake the cupcakes! I'm planning on putting pink or blue in the center accordingly and then I will have to very carefully hide the evidence from Brandon. 

I have already pre-decided that I'm going to wear all blue this week. Take note of this if you're going to read into my outfit choice on Friday.  Everyone is wearing pink or blue to the reveal based on their best guess but I will be wearing blue no matter what happens. I've decided that is my best guess - I think it's a boy although heart rate was 155 and all the quizzes and fun gender predictions have given conflicting results. So I will wear a little blue all week in hopes that I'm right and if I'm wrong - I will be equally delighted - but still wearing blue on Friday :)

GOSH - I can't wait for Friday. Although I'm pumped for Thursday - I can't wait for Friday. I know school Friday will be the hardest. They will all want to know if I know? and what is it? and are you happy with what it is? (which the answer will be "OF COURSE")  Good thing my kids don't know that I'm even going to find out on Thursday or Friday would be torture listening to them beg to know before I've even told Mr. Hall. I will not be telling anyone (sorry mom). My excuse - "BABY'S DADDY DOES NOT EVEN KNOW!"

And then 7 pm will finally come and our home will fill with the people who love us the most and it will be fun to finally show off our house. And I can just feel the giddy excitement that I will be experiencing as we all hang out and wait for the big moment where we pass out the cupcakes and everyone finds out the answer to the big question I feel like I've been waiting forever for - BOY or GIRL??

Our House Pictures

Well this post is long overdue!! But FINALLY here are a few pictures of our home. If you know me, you know that I wanted everything to be in place and "perfect" before I posted some pictures. Now that we've finally gotten a few things on the walls I feel better about showing it off. :)

Stairs coming up and the hallway beside the kitchen.

Kitchen

Dining Room and Living Room - we only lack an entertainment center

Hallway to our Bedroom - Laundry closet is on the left

Future Nursery - right now it's holding all of Brandon's 

music stuff which will (hopefully) soon be put downstairs

Guest Bathroom

Our Bedroom

 Other Side - and our closet

Our Bathroom

Pregnancy Moments So Far!

So, we took the test and found out we were pregnant on Monday, November 19th - which was just a few days before Thanksgiving.  And we kept it a secret for at least a couple weeks before realizing that we needed to tell our family and know that even if we were to lose another one that we would need those people to help encourage us anyway.  As we made it to 6 weeks for the first time and then to 8 weeks and had our first appointment we finally let ourselves get excited.  We were close to 9 weeks at Christmas and decided to tell our extended family over Christmas.  I'll let these videos show how wonderful it was to tell the extended family... :)

telling Ma Ma and the Hall's :)

telling Nanny and Pa Pa and all the Robinson's :)

Then, on New Year's Eve - we got to see our little peanut for the first time. He/She did a little wiggling and moving around and we even caught it on video. Gosh - I could watch this over and over. How cool that at only 10 weeks you can see all this?

On January 28th we had another appointment and got to hear the heartbeat. Our midwife said that the heartbeat was around 155 - 160 bpm and that baby was very active and moving around. (Ignore the video part - it's just a picture of my sweater :)

A few belly pics:

13 weeks 

14 weeks

15 weeks

Coming up: we'll get to find out the gender on FEBRUARY 14th!! :) 

Can't wait!

Our Pregnancy Story

So, it's been a while since blogging but reading a few blogs and having a few snow days has given me the inspiration to get back into it! Plus, looking back, I love that you can see the progress of our year and I don't want to forget any of this year... the year our baby will arrive!!

Our pregnancy story really started back in July although I didn't get pregnant until October.  All last year I had told Brandon that I really wanted to start trying to have a baby in July (that way we would have an April baby and I could take my 8 weeks of leave from school and then spend the whole summer with our baby) Although it didn't work out quite that way, we still started trying in July - my birthday to be exact.  We were both so excited and nervous to be thinking that we could be pregnant!

Enter July 20th - I couldn't hardly wait until I could take a test so I took one probably a little too early - but I knew I could see a faint line. Could we already be pregnant? I waited a couple days - the line got a little darker and we just knew we were already pregnant! It was the most exciting and scary thing ever.  I was ecstatic and Brandon was too. Of course - being a first time pregnant lady - I decided that I just had to tell just a couple people (my sister and a few days later my parents) and then Brandon's parents were coming a few days later to visit and I told Brandon "I want to tell them in person... should we do it now or wait until August?" and we decided to go ahead and tell them and they were ecstatic too.

A couple days later I knew something was wrong and called the nurse.  She said it could be an early pregnancy that just didn't last. (Lots of reasons can cause the pregnancy to end on its own very early - hence most people waiting until 12 weeks to announce pregnancies). So I took another pregnancy test and it confirmed that we had a very early miscarriage. I was so heartbroken. I mean - I had literally only known about the baby for a week but all my hopes were crushed and my perfect April 1st due date just went down the drain. Not only that - but we had to tell our family that we were not in fact pregnant any more and it was just really sad. I was so ready to be pregnant. It was also hard cause it's not something you want to tell people - you just hold it inside and pretend it never happened. I mean - if I wouldn't have insisted on taking a test so early in the first place - would I have even known about this baby starting to grow inside me? And plus - some people lose babies way later on - when they know the sex and they've told everyone and all that. That's way worse.  But it was still a very real loss for me.

After that I pulled myself together and decided to be thankful that at least I knew that I could get pregnant. And we tried again. When it happened again at the end of August - positive test and then a negative test - I knew something was up. This shouldn't be happening and I can't bear it happening over and over. September came with no positive test and at least it didn't bring the disappointment of losing another baby.  When October came - I had my annual visit with my midwife and I told her what had been happening. She said she thought it was a hormonal thing and put me on progesterone and we kept trying.

The next month - PREGNANT!! This time - we were hesitant to be excited and tell anyone but I really trusted that God was answering prayers.  Little did I realize how much God had been building my faith to trust in Him.  Yes, I still had to overcome the fear of losing another baby, but during this time I did trust that God knew me best and knew our baby best and that God was going to do what was ultimately His plan anyway.  The unrelenting and unnecessary worry was fading.

Today is February 2, 2013 and I am officially 15.5 weeks. We have seen our baby and heard his/her healthy heartbeat and I can't help but look back and be so thankful.  God is faithful even when we don't understand His ways.  July 25th is the perfect due date for us in ways that we probably don't even know.  I would probably be freaking out about an April 1st due date while we're still trying to settle into our house. I know His timing is perfect and even though it completely sucked to have to go through losing some really early babies I'm glad that it all worked out the way it did. I'm more grateful now for this healthy person inside of me than maybe I would be. And I'm thankful for the people around us who walked with us through it.