Apollinas

And I am so looking forward to it. We’ve been operating in the spirit of busyness lately and it will be wonderful to switch gears, relax and enjoy my family for a while. My sister is already in town and my other sister and the baby will be here tomorrow night. We are going to be doing a lot of game playing and eating and drinking (well, I won’t be drinking this year;) and just enjoying our time together. I didn’t get to take my 23 week picture last weekend but I plan on doing my 24 week one for sure.

Brad and I haven’t found out the sex of the baby yet. I didn’t think he would have an opinion about finding out or not but it turns out, he wants to wait for the surprise. He loves surprises and a lot of people were telling him that this is the biggest and best surprise of his life and he should definitely wait to find out what the baby is until he or she is born. Well, it just so happens that I don’t place a lot of value on surprises, I’m much more a “give me all the information” kind of girl. Brad likes to relay the anecdote about how when we watch movies on our laptop at home, I’ll get on the iPad to find out what happens at the end because I gotta know; Brad says, “Just watch the movie and you’ll find out!” But I want to put it all together and understand everything that is going to happen. I want to know if we are having a boy or girl not because of nursery or clothing colors (I prefer gender neutral baby things anyway) but because I want to have the time to think about our little person specifically and give this baby a particular name and bond even more with my little one during the last leg of our journey together as one person.

Our compromise between finding out when we could have at the ultrasound and finding out when the baby is born is finding out on Christmas Eve. That’s all I want for Christmas! And it will be pretty cool because we are going to make a whole thing out of it and share the moment with our families. So, probably the next time I post, we will know! And I will show you…

images via Dust Jacket Attic, Call Me Cupcake (with the recipe for the Fudge Ice cream cake with cherries!), and 100 Layer Cake

So, remember when I got back from our honeymoon and there was radio silence here on the blog for a good two months? Well, Brad and I had just found out that we were pregnant, literally on the first day home from our trip! When I woke up at 6am that day insisting we go to the Silver Diner immediately and then proceeded to order and eat two breakfasts before Brad finished his coffee, he suggested we head to CVS afterward. Yep, it took us less than a week from the wedding day to start our little family. We weren’t planning it, and we were certainly surprised, shocked, scared, nervous…

… but now we couldn’t imagine it any other way. We are 20 weeks now, (half way through!) and loving every minute of it. Well, that’s not true. The first trimester was ROUGH. I had no idea you could be nauseous 24 hours a day and crawl into bed at 4:30 pm each night exhausted and depleted. By this time though, we are used to the nose bleeds and sudden attacks of starvation. About once a week Brad has turned to me at some point and said, “Man, this pregnancy thing is hard.” And it is, but at the same time it isn’t because you’re just so happy and excited about the whole experience. I have learned so much these last few months, mostly realizing what a miracle this entire process is. It is the wildest thing we have ever experienced – just understanding what is happening in my body, it is so crazy and so perfect. It’s not always the prettiest thing in the world, but it is pretty amazing. We are totally stoked!