An Adventure Called Pregnancy

We found out that we were expecting our first baby in late May, when I was five weeks along.

We'd been trying for a baby since December so we were very happy to see this little plus sign.

This picture was taken on our first wedding anniversary at the end of July when I was around five months and just beginning to show. I was so disappointed that I hadn't started showing before then, but once my little tummy started to develop, I was very happy. Of course, that happiness could also have been attributed to the ending of some very nasty morning sickness.

The next step in our pregnancy adventure was to track down a midwife or doctor to handle prenatal care and the delivery of the baby. Happily we were able to do that and move onto the more exciting step of our first ultrasound at twenty weeks - when we'd find out if the baby was a girl or a boy. We both very much wanted a girl as our firstborn and were tickled pink {and very relieved} to learn that the little wiggling baby was a girl.

By the time my birthday rolled around in early October, I was definitely looking pregnant - unless I wore the right clothes.

After that, things started to stretch and my selection of dresses began to be limited to what I could comfortably squeeze into.

I believe this picture is from the end of October, when the weather was turning chilly and we were seriously considering the winter ahead - especially since the baby was due to be born in mid-January. It almost always snows in January where I live.

By November, not even baggy T-shirts could hide my bulging belly very well. With my weight gain picking up finally and the baby kicking up a storm, we were happily able to solve the pressing issue of winter quarters by moving into a very nice cozy cabin fifteen minutes away. Shortly after that, the Lord provided a car with a backseat and, in honor of the baby shower we tried to hold in December {it got snowed out}, my grandpa sent us a gift card with which we were able to use to buy the very much needed car seat to bring the baby home in. All our major worries taken care, we contentedly settled down for the holidays - not expecting too much to happen till January.

This is an ultrasound picture of the baby from her first ultrasound at the end of September when I was about twenty weeks along. She was kicking and waving her hands and feet around.

This is a 3D image from her third or fourth ultrasound in early January, when I was about thirty-seven to thirty-eight weeks along. During that particular ultrasound, she stuck her tongue out and that candid moment was captured {to my husband's delight} in a different picture.

My Christmas baking plans were laid aside when my doctor told us I had to take it easy and be extra careful because the baby had dropped unexpectedly {I didn't even notice} and nobody wanted her to come early. By the second week of January, after the stress of an early delivery was past, the stress of the pregnancy itself was beginning to tax my body. And I had to deal with lots of painful practice contractions on a constant bases then. One particular day, I had painful contractions every twenty minutes all day long. I was exhausted by the time we went to bed at midnight but two hours later I was up and about again. When I threw up, our doula said, "Get to the hospital," and eleven hours later at 3:50 pm, after almost forty-eight hours of labor, including four hours of pushing and one very nasty episiotomy later, our beautiful daughter Joy Chelise was born. She was eight days past her due date and weighed six pounds, four ounces. She measured twenty inches in length and had a pair of healthy lungs. :)