Let the double digit countdown begin!

That's right people, less than 100 days left in this pregnancy (assuming I don't have the baby late...I don't even want to consider that a possibility). All is going well with me and Rob (and James of course). I have blood tests in two weeks and while I'm there I'll be getting my Rhogam shot.

In other news we have picked a family practice to bring James to. Rob checked it out the other day and had a very positive experience so thankfully we can cross that off the list. We can also cross putting together/cleaning the crib, dresser/changing table, and the glider! It was a very productive weekend with nursery furniture! Speaking of being productive Kelly Jo (with some supporting help from Julie) hand made all of my shower invites for my first shower and they are out in the mail! I will have to get a picture from Kelly so I can post it on the blog, they looked amazing in the picture she showed me, I have no idea what I would do without Kelly =)

Still on the to do list...
Put clothes away in the dresser
Pick a Cord Blood company (any suggestions would be greatly appreciated)
Paint the nursery
Hang nursery decorations

That's all for now folks!

26th birthday and 6 months pregnant!

So my birthday was pretty awesome (and there is still more awesome to come tonight at NKOTB thanks to Rob and his mom!). We had birthday cake at grandma's and then dinner with the family at Adam's Mill. All in all it was a great day until Rob and I got home and read the "Mother of all Pregnancy Books" to find out decreased fetal activity is something you should call your doctor about ASAP, and considering it had been over 24 hours since I felt the baby move we called right away. The doctor set me up with an appointment for first thing this morning. Rob and I went in for my Fetal Non-Stress Test. Turns out it is actually too early in my pregnancy to be doing this test but they did it anyway. The baby's heart rate isn't increasing and decreasing when it moves as much as it should be. They'll keep an eye on this at my next appointment and when I don't feel the baby move again I need to go in for an appointment. So this sounds like it could add a whole new level of interesting to the next several months (4 to be exact, stupid 10 month pregnancy).

But on a happier note here are pictures (stolen from the internet) of a few of my many wonderful gifts! I got the changing table/dresser that we wanted for the nursery, a Vera Bradley diaper bag (the 2nd time I've gotten this bag but this time I'm actually pregnant!) and a fancy new Canon digital camera because Rob and I did a number to the old one at the beach!

22 Weeks!

Today marks a really important date in my pregnancy, the magic 22 weeks. At this point if something were to go wrong James would be viable outside of the womb (did I mention we are naming the baby James Martin?). It would be far from ideal if our little guy decided to make an appearance this early but it is somewhat comforting to know that if he did there is at least a possibility with some serious medical intervention he'd be okay. So needless to say we've been waiting for this magic date for, I don't know, say the 18 weeks I've known I was pregnant!

In other news we got a TON OF STUFF from some wonderful friends of ours (thanks Jim and Inge-Marie). We have a great crib to setup, a huge amount of clothing, a jumperoo and some other miscellaneous items. We are so excited to be well on our way to being ready (as ready as one can be I guess) for this little guy!

I promise to post pictures soon...

WE'RE HAVING A BOY!!

I'm sorry it's taken me many days to post this exciting news but we've been so insanely busy. My ultrasound was changed from 9/5 to 8/29 which was soooo exciting. Rob, mom and I packed into the little ultrasound room at the OB's office and it was AMAZING to see. We got to see cute little fingers, the brain, arm and leg bones, kidneys and a really awesome view of the baby's spine (I know it sounds so bizarre but the spine really was so cool to see). All of those things were very easy to see and it only took about 5 minutes to get nice pictures of them all, and then the big question...is it a boy or a girl? Sadly our little man was butt out and not moving much. The poor woman doing the ultrasound patiently tried to get some movement, shifted where she was looking and took lots of pictures to occupy our time. Then my question came "when is the next ultrasound if you can't tell the gender today" and she replied "there isn't one." To which I nearly lost it, this baby is as stubborn as me already! Anyway, she asked if I could do some Yoga-like move and poof perfect view that we are having a little boy! Mom and I headed right out to Baby Gap where she got the cutest outfits for her first grandchild and off to Mimi Maternity where she got me some wonderful pregnancy clothes. I will post pictures of Baby Boncoddo's first present soon!

18 week appointment...check!

So Rob and I headed off to the OB this morning and were happy to find out all is well. The baby's heart-rate was 162 and the baby is now sitting in a much more normal and more comfortable place than near my intestines which I am very thankful for. We scheduled our next ultrasound appointment for Friday September 5th so hopefully in just over 2 weeks we will know if we are having a boy or a girl...woohoo!

Still sleepy!

What a weekend (I know it's wednesday already, good lord). Rob and I headed up to the Cape on Friday for my cousin Patrice's wedding Saturday morning. We met up with Big Mike and my mother for some great seafood right on the beach Friday night but called it an early night so we could get up early to head to the wedding. Saturday morning we got stuck in crazy traffic trying to get to the wedding but luckily the ceremony started late so we made it. They got married right on the beach at this very cute little inn, it was a great day. Sadly Rob and I had to leave less than an hour after the ceremony to start the drive to North Providence, RI for our college friend Laura's wedding. We made it in time for that wedding, had a few hours between the wedding and the reception to relax and then it was off to a 5 hour reception! She planned her reception so well, there was a dance off, gags during the garter toss and lots of other little details you know she put tons of hours of work into! It was nice seeing the old UCONN gang and it was the first time everyone had a chance to see my now growing belly. Sunday we got up, went out for breakfast, headed to a PawSox game, and then finally got home a little after 5pm! I passed out for 2 hours as soon as we got home, Rob made me some pasta for dinner, and then back to sleep I went. I had to get up early Monday morning to head to New Haven for a stats workshop (with J.). It has been an insane last few days and we are really looking forward to Rob taking a few days off next week so we can start on the nursery!

Thanks about all for now!

No news is good news =)

Not too much to report on lately. I had to change my OB appointment because it was scheduled for Friday but Rob and I will be on our way to Cape Cod for wedding #1 and then quickly heading down to RI for wedding #2 the same day! The appointment is now scheduled for August 18th and hopefully then we'll schedule the anatomy scan (which is when we should be able to find out if we are having a boy or a girl!). I am officially into the 2nd trimester which comes with it the allowance for *some* caffeine which is nice. Hopefully we'll have some pictures of my growing belly and us from this weekend to post next week.

Long awaited 2nd ultrasound pictures!

So here is our little guy (or little girl). Looks far more like a baby now, which is very exciting (at least it does for me although I have looked at many an ultrasound picture and just smiled because it looked like a lot of nothing to me!).

Edit: I know that a good portion of the right pictures is cut off but I don't know how to fix it. If you double click on the picture it'll open it up in a separate and much larger window!

Sorry for the delay!

It has been a pretty uneventful month as far as the baby is concerned. My belly is starting to get a little bigger even though I've lost about 10 pounds since the start of the pregnancy. Yesterday we went to Hartford Hospital for a whole bunch of tests including the genetic tests for Downs Syndrome and Cystic Fibrosis and the ultrasound that goes with the blood work. We got to see the baby actually look like a baby for the first time which was AMAZING! I'll post the ultrasound pictures as soon as Rob scans them in so you can see how human like the baby is now compared to the first ultrasound. Sadly, we are still going to have to wait at least a few more weeks to find out whether the baby is a boy or a girl.

I have another appointment at my OB's office on Friday. I'll let you know if anything exciting happens there.

Appointment 2...

So I had my second appointment with my OB-GYN yesterday. It was a lot of nothing again but they did an exam to make sure everything is progressing along and he said he was pleased. The bleeding has stopped but I have a lot of pain in my left side. The doctor said it is likely just from my uterus expanding but it could also be a cyst. We'll find out more at my next appointment in 4 weeks. Between now and then I have to wait for my blood work to come back and schedule the ultrasound at the UCONN medical center. They are testing for cystic fibrosis among other things with all the bloodwork. Then, I am having an extra ultrasound to look at the fold in the skin around the baby's neck. They do this to check to make sure that the spinal cord is developing correctly and making sure there is not too much extra skin around the neck area which can be indicative of some developmental disorders (but honestly I don't even remember which ones, I was so tired yesterday I just signed off on anything he said was a good idea. I figure he knows better than I do right??).

I hope you guys are all doing well, I'll update more later. Rob and I are on our way to the new M.G.M Grand at Foxwoods to meet his father for a father's day lunch and a little gambling!

What a great end to the week...

So this week certainly had the potential to be one of the most devastating weeks of my life to date, and I am pleased to announce that is actually turned out to be one of the best we've had in a long time! My grandmother's surgery went amazingly well on Monday. I have seen her a few times since the surgery and she just looks better and better every time. After our baby scare we had the pleasure of seeing the ultrasound with the heartbeat so we were told it is pretty safe to start spreading the news of Baby Boncoddo. And that is exactly what we did. We sent e-mails to family, posted announcements on facebook and made the necessary calls this weekend so officially the word is out!

We also got to spend some time with Julie, Josh and Aaron this weekend and got to hear some "wonderful" baby name suggestions. Some of the best were to sell the baby's name to golden palace casino dot com to make some extra cash or to go with a one word name like mclovin. There were so many more that I hardly have time to share them all right now but let me tell you after nearly an hour of brainstorming I think we are on our way to a baby name thanks to those three!

Scarey 12 hours...

So we had a change of plans with our ultrasound. On Tuesday night I was babysitting when I realized that I had started bleeding. I immediately called the doctor on call and was told that 50% of the time this means absolutely nothing and the baby is fine (oddly enough those 50% odds didn't comfort me all that much). The doctor told me to call the office first thing in the morning and schedule an ultrasound. Needless to say I didn't do much sleeping Tuesday night and frantically called at 8am to get my appointment. Luckily they had an appointment at 8:40 and Rob stayed home to go with me.

We arrived at the doctors office and I was greeted by one of my closest friends from middle school (that I haven't seen since then and didn't know she worked there). It was nice to see a familiar face and it was even better to see how great she looked! Anyway, after what seemed like forever they called me in and in about 2 minutes flat she located the baby (and the heartbeat!!) and an area of bleeding. She said that the bleeding was not coming from the baby and I was pretty much good to go. THANK GOD! She also said I was only a little beyond 6 weeks pregnant but I am going to ignore that for the time being because the quicker I can get to 12 weeks the quicker I can start to relax, plus she said early on things can very quite a bit.

Here are the first pictures of the baby! The little arrow is where the baby is. Keep in mind the baby is way less than an inch long so you aren't really going to be able to see much. But take our word for it, there was a great heartbeat that went along with the little one!

Uncle Mike

We told Big Mike I was pregnant today by asking him if he'd like to be an uncle. He then asked if he could be the godfather =) We told him to keep his mouth shut for another few weeks he said of course and then immediately told his mother, while we were still on the phone. I think everyone that knows Mike should know I'm pregnant by Friday!

Morning, Noon and Night sickness!

So this perpetual nausea is already getting old and I'm told I can expect this throughout the first trimester...good lord! But I'm at least able to keep food down so I hear it's not as bad as it could be. Rob and I went to a baby shower yesterday and it pretty much took everything in me not to tell all of our friends there that I am pregnant. We are going to wait until we can see a heartbeat at the ultrasound next wednesday to let the world know. I know, I know, you "should" wait until after you hit the 12 week mark but realistically that isn't going to happen. Slowly but surely we've been telling people.

I FINALLY got to tell Kelly Jo this weekend (my closest friend since I was 5!) and she was so excited (hugs, tears...the works). The reason why we get along so well is that some of her first words were "we have so much to do, but just not yet" with a little wink. There are so many times when I think we are the same person. I have been itching to start cleaning out our office to make the new nursery and it seems like everywhere I go I see things I am going to "need" but I have been good so far about holding off. I can't wait until Kel and I can start getting ready for this baby and thank God she'll be around because Rob's hours at work are starting to get crazy and will be for the next several months so she'll keep me plenty occupied and she is just about the craftiest person I know which is a wonderful asset to have in a best friend!

That's all for now. I'm off to the preschool to run some kids through an experiment and then off to the hospital to wait for word on my grandmother's surgery. It's going to be a long day!

1st appointment done, second one scheduled!

Today's appointment went really well. I had a good chat with the Doctor and he cleared up a lot of my questions about medications and such. He told me the pros and cons of genetic testing and I think Rob and I have decided to do it. Although, he was really nice and reassuring about the fact that I can change my mind as many times as I would like. They made me take another pregnancy test today and luckily it was still positive =) but other than that we just did a lot of talking.

I got to schedule my first ultrasound for Wed. June 11th at 8am! 8am is great because Rob will be able to come with me to this appointment. After that I'll meet with the Doctor again on Friday the 13th (wow, I hope that's not a bad sign)!

I told my advisor about my pregnancy today and he was so supportive and reassuring, it was really nice to hear. He is a really great dad so having his support is a real blessing and I know I have a lot to learn from him and his family. The next step is to tell the rest of the family and our friends...wish me luck!

Chicago

Rob and I are in Chicago for Memorial Day weekend, along with one of our favorite people Kristen. Kristen and I have a conference to present at and Rob has some relaxing to do after an insane couple of weeks at work (and sadly this will be his last vacation for several months). Rob and I have both been here before and have come to the conclusion that this is one of our favorite cities. The food is great, the city is clean, it's easy to get around, and the people are friendly. After I'm done presenting today we have plans to go to the zoo, planetarium, China Town, a Cubs game, and Navy Pier. Should be a hectic few days but we are all really excited about it.

We get back around midnight on Tuesday and I have my first OB-GYN appointment scheduled for Wednesday at 10am so I'll update you all then and hopefully upload so pictures from Chicago!

5 weeks down

Today marks the 5th week of my pregnancy. I'm feeling well, not too tired or anything, which is good considering I have 2 presentations to put together, a trip to Chicago, 2 presentations to give, a baseball game and other crazy plans all scheduled for the next 7 days!

Rob and I told all the parents and grandparents the news this past Sunday. Mothers were excited, and fathers were shocked. My father's exact words were "what am I supposed to say, good job kids?" Toby was sad that he didn't get to announce it to everyone (like he had done at Rob's graduation dinner many years ago, by hitting the side of his glass with a fork, and announcing that everyone should be happy for me because I was pregnant-and just to be clear I was NOT pregnant at that point). Rob's father had a pretty good reaction too, he just kept saying "wow, that's great, i mean, it's really great" over and over and over again.

So everything considered things are going pretty smoothly so far. I have my first Dr. appointment Wednesday morning so I'll let you all know how that goes next week. Until then I'm off to Chicago. I hope everyone has a nice Memorial Day weekend!

January 19th...

I have my prescription for prenatal vitamins and we're off. January 19th here we come!

Who would have thought...

So, let's start out by saying that I will hopefully post more on this blog than I did on our wedding blog but in all likelihood you will have to pester me to do so. It's likely that most of you won't find this until several months (okay weeks is far more likely because I have a big mouth) have gone by so I thought maybe you'd like to know how everything progressed before you found out our big news...

Well today is day one. Home pregnancy test was positive this morning. I am now sitting at my desk just waiting for Health Services to open up so I can have the real test done. Now I know what you are thinking, who on earth would let the infirmary test something this important when they can barely get strep throat diagnosed correctly BUT I'm a little new to this and don't know where else to go. I have no idea how long these blood tests take but hopefully it's not long because I'm going to go crazy. I guess we'll have to wait and see...