The Big Belly Challenge

Jared challenged me to see who's belly was bigger. Even with him holding his breath to keep his belly big I think I still have him beat. Nice try!

22 Weeks

San Antonio TEXAS

Jared had an ADA (American Dental Association) meeting down in San Antonio. We decided to make this our final vacation before the baby comes. Jared was nice enough to sign me up for some classes while he was in his meetings. LOL! Both of our meetings ended up being well worth our time so I can't complain too much. We were also able to go to dinner with some friends from the residency in Mississippi. One friend lives in San Antonio and the others came for the meeting. It was great to see them. Our favorite places were the River Walk and The Alamo. The River Walk is under the city and has tons of restaurants and shops along a river that they light up at night.

Jared & I on the River Boat Tour

The faces on this building were meant to ward
off evil spirits

This was an awesome band performed mainly with
wind instruments. The baby kicked the whole time
we listened to them.

The River Center mall lit up at night

The Alamo

It's A BOY!

We found out at 17 weeks that we are having a boy. Jared was pretty overwhelmed by that. He told me later that he had it all planned out that I would be doing all the girl things and he wouldn't have to worry about a thing. Now he gets to do all the great things that go along with raising a little boy! After a little while he was over his anxiety and was as excited as me. He is going to be an awesome dad!

A few days later I woke up in the middle of the night to use the restroom (my favorite place these days!) and when I went back to bed I felt a little kick. It totally took me by surprise and then it happened two more times. I was so excited I couldn't go back to sleep. For the first couple of days I would jump everytime he kicked me because it was such a different sensation. I have loved every minute of it!

Baby Bump at 17 weeks

Skeletor Baby

This was our first ultrasound with our OB doctor. The clinic we go to will do an ultrasound every month and put it on a DVD. At 13 weeks our baby is mostly a head and belly but we could also see hands and feet. Jared kept referring to it as Skeletor from He-Man because you could see right through it on the ultrasound. I think it is the cutest Skeletor I have ever seen!

6 Weeks Old
This is our baby at 6 1/2 weeks. Just a little raspberry! The best thing about this ultrasound was that we got to hear our baby's heartbeat for the first time. It was so overwhelming. It put everything into perspective for me that there really was a living baby in there.

Surprise!

Jared's assistants at work decorated his office when they found out we were expecting.

I'M PREGNANT!!!

Finally the day came that I went and had my blood drawn for a pregnancy test. The doctor's blood machine was broken so they had to send my blood to the hospital. They said it would take a few extra hours. Finally at 4:45 pm I called. The hospital had run the wrong test on my blood so they were having to retest it. Finally about 6:00 they called. I had not been feeling well all day and I told Jared I wasn't pregnant so when the phone call came I was shocked beyond words. The nurse came on the phone and told me I was pregnant. I started nodding my head and smiling so hard at Jared he thought I was crazy. I gave him the thumbs up sign and then he finally sat up like "you've got to kidding". I hung up the phone and started jumping up and down and Jared was like "stop jumping around - go lay down, go lay down"! We still didn't believe it and figured they probably mixed up my blood with someone else's so we went and bought our own pregnancy test. It was awesome to finally have it come out positive. Anyway, it was so fun calling and e-mailing all of our family and friends with the best news ever.

Invitro Fertilization

As all of you know we did invitro back in June. Here's how it works: I took birth control pills for about 6 weeks to suppress my ovaries. The last weekend in May I began giving myself shots of Lupron, another suppressor. I thought I would have a really hard time with the injections because as most of you know I pass out at the sight of blood! Jared was going to be out of town for a week so I knew I needed to buck up and do it. These injections were done subcutaneous - taking a fold of skin in the abdomen. I had a blood test and ultrasound to confirm that everything was "quiet" in my system. Then the stimulating began. I had to mix different meds together and do more subcutaneous injections. I went in for a blood test and ultrasound every other day for about 2 weeks. My body didn't react very well at first so they had to bump my meds up to a higher dose and boom all the sudden I was working right. On June 19th I went under conscious sedation to have the eggs retrieved. They were able to retrieve 14 eggs, which is normal. It was supposed to only take about 30 mins. start to finish. I have a really hard time coming out of anesthesia so I was there for about 3 hours! On this day Jared began giving my the deep muscle injection, in my hip, of Progesterone. Progesterone helps the uterine lining to remain thick and also helps the embryos to implant. They called the next day to say that only 6 eggs had fertilized. I was kind of bummed, but all six kept growing until Sat. when it was time to put 'em back in. We had them transfer 2 of the best - and the rest is history!

This is what we all started out looking like!

Embryo Transfer Day 3

Happy Anniversary!
July 8th we celebrated our 9 year anniversary. My how time flies. Jared surprised me with this beautiful bouquet of flowers at the end of my day at work. It was very sweet and the flowers are still gorgeous. We had reservations at "The Roof" in Salt Lake City (the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building). It was an all you can eat buffet (Jared's favorite). Dinner was delicious and it was fun reminiscing about the last nine years.


Top 5 things I still love about Jared:

1. He does not critize me.
2. He is sooo funny. He makes me laugh everyday.
3. He is kind and friendly to everyone he meets.
4. He is a hard worker.
5. HE LOVES ME!!!