Boy or Girl???

Before I even thought about getting pregnant I always thought that finding out the sex of the baby is such a buzz kill. A woman grows this child for 10 months (40 weeks) and has to go through all of the ups and downs of pregnancy - then the moment when pregnancy ends it's all over (or just beginning depending on the way you look at it) the doctor say's "It's a ...." and you're like "Ha - I already know." I ALWAYS felt that if you are going to go through x hours of labour that there should be something at the end that was similar to an award (because we all know they do not hand out awards at the end of it for having the longest labour or being the quietest (thanks Katie Holmes) I'll never win this one...lol.

I believe that everyone has the right to make whatever decisions they want when it comes to there body and I will never judge them, but for me finding out the sex of the baby was never one of those things I was willing to budge on.

I remember sitting in the car with B talking about "if" we wanted to find out the sex of the baby (we had just found out we were expecting) and he said "yes", I was thinking - how am I going to explain to him that I don't want to know. However - the more I starting thinking about it the more I wanted to find out. With the wedding quickly approaching and not only wedding showers being planned but baby showers too!! I figured it would be nice to have everything planned for the baby before it gets here. If you know me you would know that I'm a planner (only when it comes to my personal life). I have a day book that I take everywhere with me and I'm not too sure what I would do if I ever lost it?? I began thinking about all of the things I would be able to plan if we knew the sex of the baby! So I threw my "buzz kill" theory out the window and B and I decided we wanted to find out the sex.

Months leading up to the ultrasound B and I had started talking about names we would call the baby. B is a BIG super hero fan!! He mentions to me that he would like to name his child if it's a boy : Peter, Bruce or Clark"e". It took me bit to figure out what he was talking about?? Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent. LOL ... B is so clever... at first I thought he was kidding, but he wasn't :) Fortunately we are not giving birth to a 40 year old man so Peter and Bruce are out of the equation (sorry if that's your name), which leaves us with Clarke. At first I was not a big fan of the name but it really started to grow on me. Then I made the mistake of telling my mother about this name - now she is calling our "unborn" child "Clarke". Not only does she call the baby this but she gets creative and starts putting it on things and sending it to me. Now- My mother is the sweetest lady in the world and does everything out of the kindness of her heart (she has a very big heart) she is also EXTREMELY thoughtful but I was not ready to commit on a name. What if we have a girl?
Girls names??!!?? If I really like a girls name - Brian doesn't and if Brian really likes a girls name then that name was either been someone I did not like or she was a "promiscuous" girl in High School. Clearly I'm not bringing my child into this world and give her a strippers name. As I'm sure you can guess we have yet to settled on a girls name. This whole naming thing will be alot easier if we are having a boy!!!

Ultrasound day comes and the Technician said she "thinks" she knows what we are having- but B was not in the room and I made her wait to tell me. She goes through all the babies limbs and shows us the heart and let's us hear it and says "Do you want to know what I 'Think' it is?" and I looked at B in total excitement and she told us ..... she is not 100% sure but she "thinks" it's a girl!!!

What??? We are having a Girl! I have always said that I would be happy with whatever we had, boy or girl but I have such a great relationship with my mom that I always hoped that some day I might have a chance to experience it too!!!

NOW - We have been told that she "THINKS" it's a girl but they can not be 100% at this stage? Because they were unable to get all of the pictures the first time I had to schedule another appointment to go back and have the rest of the pictures taken. Yahoo!! we can have a second opinion on the whole sex thing!! I went in for the ultrasound and I had the BEST tech ever!! The baby was not cooperating and she literally had be standing on my shoulders to try and push the baby so that it was not stuck any more. The Baby was not very happy at first when she started pushing and moving my stomach all around but eventually the baby came free and she was able to get all of the shots. (I was very thankful because they would have made me go back another time to try and get the rest of the shots- that would have made it 4 ultrasounds in 6 weeks!!) This lady was super funny and said "I can't see a penis" so it must be a girl!! The way she said it made me laugh.

Still unofficially we are having a girl. I will not be painting the nursery PINK (since I'm not a big fan of the colour) but I caved the other day and purchased a swaddling blanket in Pink and Brown, so I'm starting to come around. I sometimes still think in the back of my head that this may be a boy?? (like a 5% chance) but I guess we'll know in just over 3 months. Time is flying!!

PS- We are not going to share the name of the baby until she is born. There are a couple of reasons but primarily because we still can not settle on a name, so I guess she'll be baby Mann-Smith- (Thorpe- that's for you P) for a little while longer!!

and a bump!!

Where do I start.... there is so much to get you caught up on. I'm going to start this off with a shout out to my new favourite blogger S and P. They are due a month after us and have started the blogging game.
I'm going to create a list so I don't forget to tell you a single thing:
1) Wedding day
2) I can't fit in to my dress
3) Boobs
4) Ultrasound 1-3
5) Tap dancing baby
That should be a good post to get you caught up on my life!!

1) Chosing the perfect Wedding Date
While since we are due in July- B and I have been contemplating changing the wedding date. We waited to tell our friends and some of our family because we knew that after we told them we would get 100 questions about what we were going to do about the Wedding. This is my new favourite saying "Whatever you want Honey!!" got to love my man. I really did not want to be showing at my wedding and look back on all my photo's and think "Man I was fat......"lol jk but I do want to feel beautiful on that day so we have decided that keep the same wedding date. Since the majority of the LARGE wedding things have been booked already we figured it would make life alot easier.

2) NO Zipper for this Bride
My mom, Cousin and I went out shopping a while back and we found a BEAUTIFUL wedding dress and decided to get it as it was discontinued and fit me like a Glove. The only down fall was that the girls were not very well covered. Don't get me wrong I wasn't going to be all out there but I thought it was classy and elegant (and I knew Brian would love it!!) NOW that I'll have a 2 month old with the hopes of breast feeding I don't really want to go for the Pamela Anderson wedding and since the dress I now OWN has a zipper back I will have to have major alterations done just so that I'd fit in to again. Now I'm sure guys would careless if I was all out there for the world to see - I did not think it would be appropriate to have the "two jugs of Milk" on display at my wedding. The search continues for the 2nd perfect dress. ( I really hope that someone has a party where I can get away with wearing this dress because it's such a shame that it is collecting dust right now... I may even just wear it for fun to a party and see if anyone notices. lol)
This time around I decided to go out shopping with my mom and her sisters. (Please note I was over 3 months pregnant at the time and I was just getting over the "I could puke at the sight of food" stage.) We actually had a really nice time and I found "The Dress". It was so nice to have my family there and see them when I stepped out of the change room because I knew that I had found the perfect fit for me. (No excess boobage showing and it had a lace-up back so if I decided to eat everything in sight before this child gets here then I have some wiggle room.) I can't wait for Brian to see me in this dress .

3) Why Oh, why!! Did I get all of the boob genes?
Some of you are propable saying "Shut up!!" right now - I have come to my own conclusions regarding this touchy subject. "If you have them you don't want them and if you don't have them you want them." Let's just say I'm the first of these two scenerios. However my younger sister has this petite frame (but tall like me) with itty bitty boobs. So for some reason I took up all the boob genes
I first knew I was pregnant when I got out of the shower one day and couldn't even put a towel on my chest without felling like I was drying myself off with Sand paper. They are so sore and tender and HUGE!! As mentioned previously I'm not really one of those girls who likes having big boobs. Here are a few things I hate about them - I can't wear button-up shirt (they don't button up !!) - I can never find a comfortable bra that lift and seperates without having to spend $100 and have it flown in from over seas. - I hate clevage on big breasted woman, I think it looks like a butt crack on your chest. (no one likes looking at a plumbers butt, why would they want to see that in the front too!! ) Lastly, running hurts... I sometimes think I might get a black eye??
Now that I have hormones raging inside of me and these two humps in my way I'm starting to get really scared for when I start feeding. I'm seriously going to need a moo moo just to cover up.
After all that being said - my younger sister has this petite frame (but tall like me) with itty bitty boobs. So for some reason I MUST have took up all the boob genes and hope that they will stay under control after the wedding.

4) Ultrasound = Paparazzi
We had our first Ultrasound at week 11 (or so we thought). I was so excited and could not wait to see the little blob on the screen. I drank all my water and happily left work early to go to the clinic. B met me there and we waited until it was our turn. I went back in to the room, sans B because it said "No family members allowed during the Ultrasound" so he waited patiently for them to come get him for when he could see what was going on. I guess I should have started this off by saying since this little peanut was a BIG surprise we had to have an Ultrasound for dating purposes. I got on the table in the room and the TECH- we'll call her "EVIL" started trying to take the measurements. Well let's just say EVIL was not having a good day because she was the coldest person I have ever met. She would not talk to me or let me see what was going on. Eventually she said that I had not drank enough water and she needed to perforn an ultrasound in a VERY unpleasant way... I'll leave it at that. By then end we found out that we were actually 13 weeks along (It was a very busy October.. sorry mom too much information I know) but this means we get to meet the little peanut sooner then we expected. EVIL - never once let me see what was going on and in theend told me to dress and that we were done. B and I were so disappointed because we had these expectations of seeing a little blob and we got nothing :(
At 18 weeks we had our "for real" ultrasound, where we wanted to find out the sex of the baby. I'll leave that story for another post!! Let's just say that this technician was 110 times better then the last one I had but because the baby appeared to be "stuck" upside down in my wooha she was unable to get all of the measurements. She did however manage to give us 2 pictures of the baby and "it" had it's little fist pumping in the air for one of the shots. The little peanut was moving so much (legs and arms only because the head was stuck in the same position- it was really funny to watch) that the tech was unable to give us more but on the third go around I had the BEST technician and she decided she would take the babies first photo shoot and gave us a ton of pictures. Eventhough she practically made me stand on my head to get all of the measurements. She insisted that I should not have to come back a 4th time. I loved her!!
All in all the unltrasounds went really well - we have a healthy little baby and it's cool to think of it moving around inside of you just waiting to come out.

5) I'm growing a soccor player...
This child will not stop moving inside of me... if I sit for one second it is moving and groovin'. If it's time for me to eat... the baby is knocking on my stomach saying "feed me, feed me!!" I lay down at night and try to get to sleep and the baby thinks it's partay time and starts wiggling and moving and who knows what else. (This child could probably give swimming lessons at this point!!)
Please do not take this the wrong way I LOVE ALL of the movements but if this child is moving this much now what is going to happen when it is finally here?? I can't wait to find out what kind of little personality the peanut is going to have. I hope the baby has Brian's patients and brain - and my sense of humor (that is really all I want to contribute to this poor child.) I hope they do not get my ability to get lost (even with a GPS) or my nose.... that would be bad. I just hope that this little peanut grows up as close to his/her family as it's parents are and that it does not take life too seriously. Happy and Healthy that is all I can ask for :)

Wow- I feel alot better now that I have reacquinted my self with this whole blogging thing. I have more to tell but apparently feeding B and the baby have to take priority and I have to jet.

I'll be back in a couple of months... Just kidding!! I'm going to try and be more proactive and get myself up to date.

I'll be back!! !

Expect the Unexpected

I want to start this post by saying "I'm sorry"!! I have neglected you for so long but with good reason.
While starting this journey in Wedding planning we never thought in a 100 years that we would be dealing with a curve ball like this one. Granted it is really well received curve ball but very UNEXPECTED!! At the end of November, while B was up north working, I started getting very sick. I didn't think much of it but it lasted a really long time. I went to the doctors to get checked out and they gave me medicine for the symptoms I was having. I went home and was still not feeling better after having this medication. Some thing was not right and I started thinking back over the past couple of months and could not remember the last time Aunt Flow came for a visit... this is not unusual in my life but there were other things that led me to take a pregnancy test. While waiting for the results a little blue line (-) appeared in one of the two windows. I looked at the box and it said negative.... then I looked back at the stick and another blue line appeared this time it made a cross (+) I was confused... what did this mean?? I verified the box and it said "any resemblance of a cross means you are pregnant". By this time the cross was no longer light blue it was BRIGHT blue. In the 'second' verification window there was another line appearing and by this time I was thinking, could I really be pregnant??? I was pretty much in denial because I had convinced my self that there must have been something in the medication I was taking for it to come out this way. I was happy with this conclusion I had come to and I went to bed. I slept like a baby... no pun indented!!

The next day I woke up and thought it would probably be a good idea to let B in on my revelation last night so I called him at work and told him what had happened and he was 100% supportive. I went back to the doctors office and they did another urine test - well the results were the same and I was definitely pregnant. I was still not convinced that my eggs were that good and B's swimmers actually made it to the egg in order to produce such a wonderful gift. So I made the doctor take a blood test to be 100% sure that I was pregnant. All I could think about was I'm going to be a mom and how in the hell am I going to fit in to my wedding dress???

I called B to tell him the good news and we were both a bit shocked and happy all at the same time. We had a lot of decisions to make in the next little while that would effect so many things. Would we change the wedding date? Will we still have a large wedding and invite all of our friends and family? So many things to digest and on top of this I could pee every 2 hours and sleep at 3pm every single day.

B was absolutely amazing through this whole process. He has been nothing but supportive and caring and everything I could ask for. I'm one lucky girl to be marrying such a wonderful man.

Check back in soon to hear about all the trials and tribulations that I'm going through planning a wedding and getting ready for a new baby.

Thank you for being patient with me while I get back on my feet and I'll write soon.