Say hello to my little friend....

Harvey Forest Potts!

It's a boy!

There's our little guy in 3D. Isn't his nose just the cutest thing ever? He sucked on his thumb quite a bit, but he'd only suck on it for like 5 seconds, get bored with it, and then went back to this position you see above. Every time the tech tried to get a good thumb sucking picture it turned out super blurry because he moved so quickly! Anyways, here are some more pictures to enjoy in the meantime since this will likely be our one and only ultrasound for this pregnancy!

(And last but not least, the proof - It's really a boy in there.)

It was such an awesome experience and I couldn't stop smiling. Our tech was really nice and was very dedicated to get the best shot of every shot that she could get. We ultimately got to watch the little guy on ultrasound for about 45 minutes so it was a pretty long ultrasound and we loved every minute of it! She would've let us stay longer if we wanted to.

Oh and the 3D was an extra bonus because our tech was just that nice. She felt bad because she originally couldn't get a very good profile picture so she went and checked to see if anyone else was scheduled then came back and she wanted to do 3D for the rest of it just for fun to see if we could get a better picture of our little one. She ended up getting the 2D profile pics at the same time too. It was a fun little bonus of extra viewing time.

Stay Tuned!

Tomorrow is the mid-pregnancy ultrasound! We (so long as little one cooperates) will find out boy or girl for sure instead of just on the fun little urine gender test thing.

I've been feeling him/her move around a LOT the past week and a half. I had felt little movements here and there before but now it's throughout the day and every day. Today s/he is liking my vacation just as much as I am. (I have today and tomorrow off this week since it's UEA here so no school for the kiddos). I have just been relaxing all day so far. I finally got to catch up on the lack of sleep that has been plaguing me for a few weeks now. I have been a walking zombie and was so ready to have a few days to sleep in as long as I could.

In the hypno-birthing book I am reading there was a page that was so fascinating to me and I've been dying to try this out since I read about it. It talked about how you and your significant other might be feeling anxious, nervous, hopeful, and all those things you feel right before you have a baby, but then it talked about switching those perspectives to your baby's perspectives. It talked about how before your baby is born it has a somewhat limited knowledge of what to expect since it can still hear and perceive things from inside the womb and by the time s/he is ready to come out it's probably just as scared, nervous, anxious, or excited depending on what it has heard & felt (ex - it posed some different scenarios - a baby entering a household where it heard a lot of yelling versus a baby entering a house where it's parent(s) would talk to it before it was born or listen to calming music). It said to try and do some things before the baby is born to make it feel "welcomed" such as talking to him/her, rubbing your belly to let it know you are there, listening to calming music, singing to him/her, etc etc. By doing this it actually helps you bond with your baby faster after s/he is born because you are making yourself aware that there is actually a little person there that is not just a blob on an ultrasound screen and the baby also already feels some sort of connection to the outside world. I think I found this part of the book so interesting because I had never really thought of it like that before.

Ever since that part of the book really stuck out to me, I've been looking forward to starting to do something like that once the baby started to move around and today I finally got a chance. As I've been sitting here relaxing, s/he was moving around quite a bit so I took the opportunity to try this out. I rubbed my stomach back letting it know someone's out here too and once I stopped s/he just moved around in response to the little nudges and we wen back and forth for 5 or 10 minutes. It was pretty fun and made me even more excited to see the little one tomorrow.

Nick still has yet to feel the movements from the outside. He tries, but he keeps thinking he's just feeling my pulse and the movements aren't strong enough on the outside yet I guess for him to be able to tell the difference between a pulse and a kick or roll. For me it's easy because I not only can feel it on the outside I can feel it on the inside too so I know it wasn't just my pulse. haha. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks though he'll start being able to feel the little one moving around too.

Can you believe this little one is just about halfway done growing already?

101 Dalmatians

Nick and I were reminiscing about our childhood just last night and realized it's been such a long time since we've seen one of our favorites - 101 Dalmatians. We both were a 101 dalmatian at one point for Halloween when we were little too which we have almost identical pictures from around the same age. Well anyways, amidst our reminiscing we recalled the Kanine Krunchies Jingle - heard below on the youtube video.

We think my niece Maggie sounds exactly like the singers on the jingle. We can't get over how closely she sounds like them!

Time is flying by!

This past month went by so quickly! My monthly appointment is right around the corner again TOMORROW! I am so excited because at this appointment we'll be able to get the "prescription" for our ultrasound and are going to schedule it for next Friday! A few weeks ago I called the hospital we want to get it at so we can do it through out insurance just to make sure their scheduling was pretty easy to get into, otherwise I would have called our midwife and asked them if they could write up that prescription thing sooner so we could schedule it. For some reason I'm pretty confident we'll be able to get in when we want to. Hoping for next Friday at 6:30pm (they close at 7) so my mom can try to make it down in time. I also have next Thursday and Friday off of work so that's the main reason I want to do it one of those days.

It is so exciting how quickly the time has gone by so far. We're almost halfway through this pregnancy now. Only about 5 months left as of today. I am now getting people at the school asking me all the time when I'm due and about baby stuff. I don't look ginormous yet, but you can definitely tell something is growing in there besides fat stores. I must say that I actually LOVE that people can now tell enough to ask me about it.

Oh, and our choosing of the first name has finally been completed for our boy or girl. I wanted a name picked out for a boy or a girl before we find out what it is so once we find out we can start calling it by the name. The middle name is still being debated but we have our options. If it's a boy he's going to be Harvey, and if it's a girl she's going to be Daphne. We thought about whether or not to announce our names and decided we're both so opinionated and it took us long enough to decide that no matter what anyone says we won't be swayed anyway. We've gotten good and bad comments on both the names but we still are in love with them.