What's normal now, anyhow?

The first trimester is over and I feel less pregnant than ever! Well, sort of. I definitely feel a lot better! So much so that I intermittently find myself forgetting that I'm pregnant. It's wonderful to feel normal! A little fatter, but normal!

1st Trimester Recap:
According to all of the books, the baby should have grown to be about 3 inches long. When I went for a sonogram at 7 weeks, our baby was a little ahead of that curve (of course!) so I'm guessing it's a bit bigger. I gained 4 lbs. Which I'm happy with, my goal was to keep it under 5 lbs. during the first trimester, but with the amount I was eating after week 12, I was sure that goal would be blown away, thankfully not! I've been walking, swimming and doing prenatal yoga (once :P ). I definitely want to step up the prenatal yoga now that I'm in the second trimester though! Around 7 weeks all I wanted to eat was salt, and the weeks after that I couldn't stand it. I also haven't been able to stand the smell of vodka sauce or chai tea. There hasn't been much in the way of cravings, just aversions so far! I haven't been measuring my belly, which I really wanted to do, but pictures speak a thousand words....


4 Weeks:

13 Weeks:

 There's not too much change, but definitely more protrusion in the belt area! Now for the progression inside..

7 Weeks:                                                                                

 

12 Weeks: 

From tadpole to baby in just 5 weeks! .......Now for my next trick! :P 

Our first family vacation!

Well, in utero family vacation. For my birthday, Kiersten decided to surprise me with a trip back to our old stomping grounds, State College, PA. This happened to coincide with evasion of the northeast being terrorized by Hurricane Irene. Go figure. So, we've been bopping around thinking about how nice this place is. Oh, and we found a little souvenir for Tail.

This will go with our already procured Geneseo swag (to be shown in a subsequent post, courtesy of grandparents-to-be Wallace(s)).

Tail's Current Playlist:
All Day- Girl Talk
Deal- Furthur
Down By The Water- Decemberists
Box Of Rain- Grateful Dead
Index- Steven Wilson

Family Pic!

Speaking of which, Tail is about to go to his SECOND real concert on Nov 12, at Best Buy Theater. Mr. Steven Wilson. The first concert being Grace Potter and the Nocturnals at Thursday at the Square in Buffalo, NY. Tail is going to love music? Tail is going to Penn State?

deTAILs

So, I think the name Tail needs a little explaining. Is this the name of our baby? Will we call it Tail when it comes out? Who knows. Maybe. It's certainly pretty cute. And we love it.

Right now it's a nice gender neutral moniker to call our growing tike. While reading every piece of information Kier could get her hands on in the first trimester we learned that at one stage of growth the baby actually has a tail! This tail winds up becoming the bottom of the spine and rump, and is now long gone. At the time we were fascinated. We started calling it Tail because it was too great to pass up. Since then we've been wondering if maybe we should stop? Does it make sense to give our baby a pet name about a part of its body it no longer has? No. Why are we over thinking this? Tail is great. We love Tail.

The Rabbit Done Died!

Just to bring everyone up to speed:

We found out we were pregnant on Father's Day when I was only about 4 weeks along. It would seem that I took the test about a minute after my body started producing hCG, which is the hormone a woman's body produces only when pregnant, and the hormone that all pregnancy tests test for. As you can see from the picture only one of those pregnancy tests are actually reporting pregnancy (first response). I went a little nuts when the first one came out positive and bought another pack of pregnancy tests (ept). Both of those test showed a faint second line before it disappeared completely. Which made me question the accuracy of the first one. Moral of the story ladies, don't buy ept! I went to the doctors 2 days later and it was confirmed, Eli and I were going to have a baby! Yikes!

I'm now 12 weeks pregnant and a lot has happened during the 8 weeks in between!

Here I am at 4 weeks, the baby is the size of a poppyseed:

 6 weeks, baby is the size of a pea (not much change)!

 7 weeks, a blueberry!

 8 weeks, raspberry!

 9 weeks, an olive! Is that a belly I see? Nope, just gas!

 10 weeks, a prune! Ah, the joys of a thickening waste line.

I'm a little scared at this point to take a 12 week shot. The baby is now the size of a plum. I've definitely gotten my appetite back thanks to a change in prenatal vitamins and the culmination of the first trimester (one week left)! Instead, here's a shot of what I've been working on for the past 12 weeks:

                                                   

Hey Baby!