It takes just a little bit of Hope!

Where oh where to begin... If you've been following along, our journey to parenthood was detoured a bit this summer, but Jason and I are happy to announce that we are having a baby! Needless to say it's been a hard secret to keep, but we wanted to be reassured that everything was progressing as it should - and it is!!!!

I'm 12 weeks today and our Butterbean is due July 13, 2010!

Back tracking a bit, we found out that I was pregnant right after my birthday :) - I guess you could say it was a belated birthday gift. I took a test on November 6th and there was the glaring "Pregnant" on the stick. Jason had been traveling all week, so I surprised him when he got home. He couldn't believe it happened again so quickly.

Our first appointment was the week of Thanksgiving (I was 7 weeks), and things looked good so far and we got our first glimse of Butterbean. Given the past miscarriage and that we didn't know the baby stopped growing, I requested another ultrasound at 10 weeks.

So after what felt like the longest 3 weeks of waiting, I was able to see our sweet Butterbean at 10 weeks on Dec. 16th.

I was pretty nervous about this ultrasound, fearing that they wouldn't find a heartbeat and Jason couldn't come since he was traveling with work. As the tech started the ultrasound, I stared at the screen the entire time, searching for the tiny heartbeat. At first I couldn't see it, but I could see a head, body, arms and legs. Then as I looked a bit closer, there was the heart just a racing! I immediately started crying, I couldn't believe the rush of emotions. It finally felt real! Our little Butterbean was just a wiggling around the entire time.

Now fast forward to today... We had my 12 week appointment along with a Nuchal Translucency screening. During my OB appointment we got to hear the baby's heartbeat and it took the nurse no time to find it - so amazing to hear! We then went to another office to have the Nuchal Translucency screening. It's a more detailed ultrasound screening for Down Syndrome risk. My OB said we would really enjoy this ultrasound, but I didn't realize how much. It lasted for about 25 minutes and we got to see so much of Butterbean. He/she was moving all around, but didn't want to quite cooperate for some of the measurements, but after a little poking, proding and coughing the tech got what she needed. Both the tech and the doctor said everything looked really great and Butterbean looked healthly.

Here are some of the pictures from today, along with some commentary I added :)

And lastly, here is the first of the belly shots... I think our camera was being extremely nice today, there is a bit of a belly going on. All I can say is thank you to lowrise jeans!

Jason and I are so excited and feel so blessed that we have our Butterbean on the way. We've got a long road ahead of us, but so excited to see what the future holds!